Last week, Judge Judith Bartnoff signed a temporary restraining order against The National Law Journal (NLJ) enjoining it from publishing certain details that the NLJ legally obtained from court documents.
Specifically, the NLJ was not allowed to name a government agency conducting a regulatory inquiry into one of the subjects of the article, POM Wonderful.
Bartnoff, as she considered the order, said, "If I am throwing 80 years of First Amendment jurisprudence on its head, so be it." She said the court's interest in maintaining the "integrity" of its docket trumped the First Amendment concern.
I am not sure how integrity has anything to do with this ruling. If the item is in the court documents, why shouldn't the NLJ be permitted to publish the details?
This week, the Judge has seen the light and ruled differently.
Its still unclear on what authority the judge gave the initial ruling in the first place.
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