Courts should protect public from bad products

SOME lawsuits never get to a verdict or even a trial, because the parties to the lawsuit reach a settlement.

Often that agreement includes a confidentiality requirement. Court records are sealed as a condition of the settlement. Plaintiffs who try to warn others about the dangers they encountered — whether over bad tires or defective medical equipment — could actually be held in contempt of court or face steep fines.

That's a problem where the keep-mum condition endangers unsuspecting people.

Think Vioxx, the prescription arthritis drug and painkiller pulled from the market in 2004 because it was found to double the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Eventually, manufacturer Merck faced thousands of lawsuits, but the drug's dangers were cloaked for too long by confidentiality orders in earlier lawsuits.

Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, proposes a remedy to keeping such dangers to the public hidden. His Senate Bill 5886 would require state courts to presume these agreements are not in the public interest and require closer scrutiny of such protective orders before they are entered into the court record.

The 2007 Seattle Times series, "Your Courts, Their Secrets," highlighted the practice of many King County Superior Court judges closing court records without much questioning of whether they should be closed. The approach in King County has improved, but Kline and other supporters believe dangerous secrets are still sometimes kept elsewhere.

Kline's bill would help to make sure citizens are being protected by their courts and not left in peril.