Snowball's chance in hell
On November 7, 2008 Philadelphia Attorney Phillip J. Berg filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against Barack Obama. Shortly afterwards, the suit was ordered sealed by the court.
Between the “filed suit” and the “shortly after”, the five-page complaint was available for download via the Internet, and this was done by interested individuals, and I (and the rest of the free world who wants to) have read it.
I have some respect for a federal court seal, so I won’t display a copy here and I won’t detail what’s in it. What I will say is that you would see nothing in the sealed lawsuit than you have not already seen in the public Berg v. Obama et al. pending before the 3rd District Court of Appeals.
And, as with all of these suits, it doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of prevailing.
The case should have been sealed upon filing. Berg did not file correctly. And, if he’s going to talk about having a “secret suit” on his website and blog, what’s the point of the seal anyway? He just talks about the fact that he can’t talk about it. But, I’ve seen it too. As have lots others. It’s just not much of a secret.
One reason to seal it is that anybody reading would realize immediately the central lie of the case, namely that Berg claims to know things not generally known and then lists the same stuff from his public suit.
Mimi, I agree. Actually, what I think happened (based only on circumstantial information – NOT first hand or even second hand information) – is that
(a) Berg filed the case and issued summons to Obama in violation of the False Claims Act.
(b) After that case became public, people started reading — and writing about the FCA and its express requirement that such claims must be filed under seal and the defendant must not be served.
(c) After a few such comments/posts were published, Berg apparently refiled it under seal.
Thus, while it’s impossible to confirm, I think it far more likely that Berg simply corrected his initial error, than that any court ordered the case to be placed under seal.