Grove Fresh Distributors, Inc. v. Everfresh Juice Co.

24 F.3d 893 (7th Cir. 1994)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

A pair of lawsuits was filed by Grove Fresh Distributors, Inc. against several of its competing orange juice manufacturers. The lawsuits are based on allegations that the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to unlawfully adulterate and misbrand orange juice in violation of federal unfair competition laws, Food and Drug Administration regulations, and the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute (RICO). In the first of these cases, filed in 1989 (the ' '89 case'), the district court issued a protective order limiting Grove Fresh's ability to disclose information obtained from the defendants by virtue of the discovery process which the defendants classified as confidential. In a subsequent lawsuit involving similar claims, filed in 1990 (the ''90 case'), the district court sealed the entire court file. Two different sets of intervenors requested leave to intervene in the cases for the purposes of modifying the protective order in the '89 case and vacating the seal in the '90 case. The first are plaintiffs in a separate group of class action cases. They are suing many of the same orange juice manufacturers for consumer fraud and breach of warranty. They believe that due to the factual similarity between their case and the Grove Fresh cases, much of the relevant material will be the same and thus they should be allowed to save the money for discovery. The trial court rejected the Consumers' motion to intervene because the court believed that they lacked standing and that they would not suffer any prejudice from the denial. The second group of intervenors, The Ad Hoc Coalition of In-depth Journalists ('Coalition') represents a group of professional journalists. The court recognized their right to any court decisions in the case and any documents upon which the court relied in making its decisions. But for reasons of expedience, the court refused to grant access to the Coalition until the proceeding was completed. They also ruled that the Coalition had neither standing nor any rights on the merits to have access to materials which were part of the discovery process. The '89 case was dismissed from a motion for summary judgment, and the '90 case was dismissed pursuant to a settlement among the litigants. The Coalition renewed its request to vacate the seal on June 1, 1993. The district court denied the request.