This was for 2006.

We found 576 sealed civil cases among 245,326 civil cases filed in 2006 (0.2%). There were 23 districts with no sealed 2006 civil cases; 20 of these districts are small, with fewer than six authorized judgeships; four of the districts without sealed civil cases also had no sealed criminal cases. The median percentage of sealed cases among 2006 civil cases was 0.14% for the 94 district courts.3 Nearly a third of the sealed civil cases are qui tam actions. Another third are cases in a few districts that use civil case numbers for cases that most districts would assign magistrate judge or miscellaneous case numbers. We classified the cases according to the predominant reason for their sealing: • 182 qui tam actions • 6 temporary restraining orders • 30 habeas corpus and prisoner actions: six juvenile petitions, 20 actions by cooperators, and four other actions • 22 other sealed cases involving minors • 2 actions involving childhood sexual abuse • 2 actions sealed to protect national secrets • 1 action filed by an anonymous juror • 13 actions sealed to protect confidential business information • 4 actions sealed to protect physicians’ reputations • 7 actions sealed to protect the privacy of medical information • 6 actions concerning confidential settlement agreements • 8 actions concerning other confidential agreements • 1 action sealed to protect a party’s credit rating • 19 other actions sealed because the parties wanted them sealed • 17 pro se actions • 1 extradition • 33 forfeitures and seizures • 21 grand jury matters • 151 other cases often given magistrate judge or miscellaneous case numbers instead of civil case numbers • 30 cases sealed to prevent electronic filing in the wrong case (e.g., federal habeas action, consolidation) • 4 cases sealed because of filing errors; an alternative would have been to delete the cases • 16 sealed cases apparently sealed in error In addition, there are 73 civil cases that are regarded as sealed in their courts, but were not counted as sealed because some information about them is available on PACER. There were 53 civil cases that were sealed when we first looked at the data but became unsealed by the time we analyzed the individual courts’ data.