SANTA IADEVAIA
v.
PROVIDENCE SCHOOL DEPARTMENT
W.C.C. No. 2005-03798
Rhode Island Worker Compensation
State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations Providence
November 6, 2019
FINAL
DECREE OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
This
matter came on to be heard by the Appellate Division upon the
claim of appeal of the petitioner/employee and upon
consideration thereof, the employee's appeal is denied
and dismissed, and it is
ORDERED,
ADJUDGED, AND DECREED:
That
the Orders of the Court entered on March 14, 2016 denying the
employee's motions be, and they hereby are, affirmed.
PER
ORDER:
Nicholas
DiFilippo, Administrator
DECISION OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
OLSSON, J.
This
matter is before the Appellate Division on the employee's
appeal from orders of the trial judge denying two (2) motions
she had filed seeking to protect personal health information
contained in medical records introduced into evidence and
mentioned in a previously issued appellate decision. After
reviewing the record and the arguments made by the employee,
we deny the employee's appeal and affirm the orders of
the trial judge.
On June
17, 2005, the employee filed an original petition in which
she alleged that work-related stress aggravated her multiple
sclerosis symptoms, resulting in disability. This claim was
denied on the merits at pretrial, at trial, and subsequently
by the Appellate Division in a written decision. See
Iadevaia v. Providence School Department, W.C.C. No.
2005-03798 (App. Div. 2011). More than three (3) years after
the entry of the Final Decree of the Appellate Division, the
employee sought to reopen this matter for the purpose of
filing a motion to seal the record. The motion to reopen was
granted and the employee filed a Motion to Seal Record and
Final Decree of the Appellate Division (filed September 5,
2014), a Motion to Deem Information as Confidential (filed on
June 9, 2015) and a Motion to Use a Pseudonym and Re-Title
the Record, Final Decree, and the Appellate Decision (filed
on January 19, 2016).
After
reviewing the employee's memorandum and hearing oral
argument, the trial judge held that there are no applicable
provisions authorizing this Court to change the caption of a
case previously litigated and redact or seal an Appellate
Division decision published more than three (3) years
earlier. The trial judge noted that while there are certainly
various courts that may issue confidential decisions, those
courts have been granted such authority by court rule or
statute.1 The trial judge stated that he balanced
the employee's privacy concerns against the public's
right to know but reiterated that there is no authority that
would allow the court to grant either...
