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The Murdoch Family Trust litigation is making news again. Media organizations sought access to the proceedings and access to court filings in the case. The district court denied access, instead entering an order sealing nearly all the documents in the case and closing the proceedings to the public. Although the case has settled, Nevada's Supreme Court chose to consider the media organizations' writ petition in New York Times Co. v. Dist. Ct., 141 Nev. Adv. Op. 71 (December 23, 2025), to clarify questions regarding public access to court records.
The Supreme Court first concluded "the district court erred in interpreting the statutes [about sealing certain records] to mandate sealing throughout the case without the exercise of judicial discretion." Next, the court noted that "the district court erred by determining that the statutes remove the district court's discretion to consider redaction instead of sealing."
The Supreme Court then concluded the district court also erred when it "found that the statutes gave rise to a compelling interest in keeping certain information concealed from the public and that the public's interest in the information protected by the statutes was 'de minimis, at best.'"
"To be sure, the public's interest in this case is not de minimis where that interest is grounded in a public right of access, and Doe 1's trust controls a major, publicly traded, political news conglomerate." Further, the Supreme Court found that the district court did not give enough weight to the importance of transparency in maintaining public trust in the judicial system.
The Supreme Court did not foreclose the possibility of sealing or redacting certain information, but determined that sealing the entire case was not supported. "NRS 164.041 and NRS 669A.256 allow for certain trust-related documents to be sealed provisionally, but the district court must still promptly conduct a proper analysis as to each document to determine whether demonstrated interests overcome the presumption of openness and warrant their continued closure."
The Supreme Court returned the case to the district court with the following instructions:
[T]he district court must review the hearing transcripts and documents in the court file. In doing so, it must consider arguments and evidence to determine whether there is a significant privacy interest to overcome the presumption of openness, warranting continued sealing, or whether redaction or another less restrictive alternative would adequately protect such demonstrated interests.
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