Frankl v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.

A New Jersey state court case filed on behalf of the victim of a rollover accident caused by defective Goodyear tires. During the course of the litigation, discovery related to the defective tires was sealed pursuant to an umbrella protective order that had been stipulated to by the parties without any showing of good cause for secrecy. We moved to intervene and to unseal the discovery materials relating to the defective tires. We won a favorable ruling from the trial court unsealing some of the discovery materials, which was appealed by the defendant. The intermediate state court threw out our challenge on the novel ground that nonparties to a lawsuit lack standing to intervene to unseal discovery materials. The New Jersey Supreme Court granted our petition for review but, unfortunately, the Court affirmed the decision below holding that we had no right to intervene in the case (and, thus, no standing to challenge the sealing of the discovery materials).