What does "Settlement terms were filed under seal." mean?
Hm....that's certainly interesting.
Settlement agreements are often kept confidential, but I don't know how often settlement agreements are actually filed under seal. I don't think that's very common practice but I'd like a practicing attorney (especially one who practices in Federal District Court) to comment about this.
An example of something else being filed under seal would be an adoption (at least in Ohio). What this means is that I can not use readily available information (such as the adopting parent's names and date of births) to look up the information of an adoption case. Rather, you already need to know the case number, details, etc. When I e-file, adoption cases don't even show up under my list of cases. Almost like the dark web?
It's probably not that easy to understand for normal people with normal lifes and minds what this crap is all about.
I'd venture to guess that this is more a matter of the Judge's docket than anything relating to the actual case facts. The initial suit was filed in August 2014, and Judge Chen allowed it to proceed in December. The timing from then to now isn't out of the picture.