McGraw-Hill CoS. v. Procter & Gamble Co., 515 U.S. 1309 (1995)

McGraw-Hill Companies v. Procter & Gamble Co.

No. A-276

Decided September 21, 1995
515 U.S. 1309

ON APPLICATION FOR STAY

Syllabus

An application to stay a District Court order restraining petitioner from publishing a magazine article disclosing documents filed under seal with that court is denied. Since it appears that the order was entered without notice to petitioner and was not supported by the finding required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(b), it can be assumed that the court would have dissolved the order had petitioner so moved. Had it refused to do so, the Court of Appeals would have had jurisdiction to address the restraint’s merits. Instead, petitioner filed an expedited appeal, which the Court of Appeals dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. The stay application addresses the merits of the District Court’s order, not the Court of Appeals’ jurisdictional holding. Even if there is jurisdiction to pass on the order’s merits, the wiser course is to give the District Court an opportunity to find the relevant facts -- since there is a dispute over how petitioner acquired the documents -- and allow both it and the Court of Appeals to consider the merits of the First Amendment issue before it is addressed here.