Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas Sealing & Redaction Procedures

CRITICAL

Information required by the Electronic Filing System may be provided to the Clerk, but must be redacted from attached PDF documents.

This rule shall not prevent a filer from providing information to the Clerk of the Orphans' Court required by the Electronic Filing System, including, for example, the social security number of a decedent or personal representative, provided that the information shall be redacted from all attached PDF documents.

CRITICAL

Filing parties must not enter information subject to redaction in the electronic filing Docket Text field.

Any information required to be redacted under this rule, or by court order, shall not be entered in the "Docket Text" field by the filing party during electronic filing.

CRITICALCriminal cases

Counsel and unrepresented parties must follow the public access policy and refrain from including confidential information in court filings.

Counsel and unrepresented parties must adhere to the Public Access Policy of the Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania and Montgomery County R.Crim.P. 113.1 and refrain from including confidential information in legal papers filed with the Clerk of Courts or the Court whether filed electronically or in a paper format

WARNING

For good cause in a specific case, the court may order additional information, such as a home address, driver’s license number, or minor children’s names, redacted.

The court may, for good cause shown in a specific case, order that additional information must be redacted from any filing, including but not limited to the home street address or driver's license number of a specified individual or the names of minor children;

WARNING

The court may order a person who filed a redacted document to also file an unredacted copy under seal.

The court may order the person making a redacted filing to file, in addition, an unredacted copy under seal;

WARNING

The court may later unseal a filing it permitted to be filed under seal and may then order the filing party to redact it.

Where the court has permitted a filing to be made under seal, the court may later unseal the filing and may order the filing party to redact the filing at that time.

CRITICAL

Unless an applicable law, rule, or court order requires otherwise, filers must redact specified Social Security or taxpayer identification numbers, dates of birth subject to stated exceptions, and financial account security information from filings and attachments.

Unless required by an applicable law, rule or order of court, any party or non-party filing a legal paper, as defined in Supreme Court Orphans’ Court Rule 1.3, with the Clerk of the Orphans’ Court must redact identifying information appearing in the legal paper filed, including in any attachments or exhibits thereto, as follows: An individual's social security number or taxpayer identification number (other than the social security number of a deceased individual); An individual's date of birth, provided that the filing may include the year of an individual's birth; provided that any filing related to a guardianship of a minor's person or estate or approval of a minor's compromise may include the date of birth of the minor; With respect to any financial account number, including but not limited to any bank account, investment account, or credit card account, the account number must be redacted, as well as any PIN, password or other number used to secure such account, provided that the filing may include the last four digits of the account number;