[From TheState.com - http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/4463167.htm]

In a major victory for consumers, South Carolina's federal judges have banned all court-sanctioned secret settlements of lawsuits.

The ban has been widely hailed as a new standard to protect the public from faulty products, unsafe working conditions and even sexual predators.

This is the first federal judicial district to take such strict ban on secret settlements.

The new rules do not affect all federal lawsuits. They apply only to cases in which people involved in suits ask a judge to enforce secrecy with the threat of a contempt of court citation.

The change does not affect state courts where the vast majority of suits are filed, including medical malpractice claims.

S.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal has said she supports more openness in lawsuit settlements. She's working on a similar ban, but has said she wants the Legislature's endorsement. The General Assembly returns in January.

William Kester, a Pendleton lawyer who supports the change makes the proponents' point: "There is no justice when it is hidden from our citizens,'' he wrote to the judges.

Charleston lawyer Henry Smythe, who has represented the Firestone tire company for 25 years, said the ban is unnecessary and inappropriate.

Judges sealed settlements of early lawsuits against defective Firestone tires that were blamed for 100 deaths and 250 injuries. Had the settlements not been secret, the public would have known sooner about the dangers from the tires, advocates of openness said.

South Carolina's chief federal judge, Joe Anderson who raised the issue last summer said the ban keeps judges from being caught in the middle of contentious disputes.

For example, if a victim wins a large settlement on the condition it is sealed and a judge refuses because of the public's right to know, the victim might blame the courts if a jury later refuses to award any money, Anderson said in a July letter to his fellow judges.

Academics, consumer and media groups backed the change.

"We greatly appreciate the transformational leadership you have demonstrated,'' wrote consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

Some wanted the judges to go further and ban documents that lawyers turn up in their preparation for trials.

The Public Citizen Litigation Group, a Washington consumer advocacy group, asked judges not to seal "any records containing information concerning public health or safety or raising other issues of significant public interest."

Florida passed a law in 1990 that bans any court from sealing information on public hazards and allows the public to challenge court sanctioned secrecy, wrote Amanda Frost of Public Citizen.

Larry Stewart, a Florida lawyer and former president of American Association for Justice, said he hasn't heard of any settlements lost because of the ban in that state. "This is not a big deal anymore,'' Stewart was quoted in a September article in Miami Daily Business Review.