Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Superior Court

I. INTRODUCTION

Defendant, Universal City Studios, Inc., has filed a mandate petition which seeks to compel the respondent court to seal various documents pertinent to an arbitration dispute. We do not at this juncture decide the merits of defendant’s mandate petition. This is because in conjunction with the mandate petition, defendant has filed a motion with the clerk of this court to seal the aforementioned documents pursuant to California Rules of Court, rule 12.5(e). As required by rule 12.5(e)(3), we permitted the aforementioned documents to be conditionally lodged under seal pending resolution of the merits of defendant’s sealing request. Additionally, after we issued several orders, defendant sought to narrow its sealing request to include only two documents. The two documents consist of an October 14, 1998, settlement agreement and a June 6, 2002, stipulation and sealing order in a federal case. We conclude the sealing requests pending before us should be denied. Hence, we will return the aforementioned documents to defendant as required by rule 12.5(e)(7).

Without the foregoing documents, the denial of defendant’s mandate petition is now foreordained because it…