Judge seals briefs, pulls opinions in Amtrak case

A federal judge in Pennsylvania directed Lexis and Westlaw to remove eight opinions from their database as part of a confidential settlement, The Legal Intelligencer reports. Related court documents were also sealed, though one of the defendants, Amtrak, is owned by the federal government.

The newspaper reports that U.S. District Judge Lawrence F. Stengel “agreed to vacate eight of his published opinions and to ‘direct’ Lexis and Westlaw to remove them from their databases.” It added that “[e]xactly how the lawyers went about persuading Stengel to take such an unusual step is impossible to say because all of the court papers are under seal and none of the lawyers will talk about it.”

The case, Klein v. Amtrak, began when two teenagers climbed on top of a parked train and suffered severe electrical burns from an overhead wire. The plaintiffs were awarded more than $24 million by a jury before the case settled.