Eric Ollison v. Gregory Gossett

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 23-1125
ERIC O LLISON ,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
GREGORY GOSSETT, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Central District of Illinois.
No. 1:17-cv-01077 — James E. Shadid, Judge.
____________________
DECIDED JUNE 24, 2025
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HAMILTON , Circuit Judge, in chambers. On May 7, 2025, the
panel hearing this appeal issued an opinion affirming the
judgment for defendants Gossett and Nicholson. I filed a sep-
arate dissenting opinion. 136 F.4th 729 (7th Cir. 2025). My dis-
senting opinion noted that plaintiff Ollison had settled with
the Wexford defendants (the company and individual em-
ployees and former employees) for three million dollars.

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2 No. 23-1125
Briefing in this appeal indicated that plaintiff had reached
a settlement with the Wexford defendants. During oral argu-
ment, I asked plaintiff’s counsel “is the settlement amount
with Wexford and company public?” Plaintiff’s counsel an-
swered “yes.” I asked for the amount, and counsel answered
with the three million dollars sum. That argument took place
in a public courtroom, of course, and the recording of the ar-
gument has been available through the court website since
shortly after the November 8, 2024 argument.
After the majority and dissenting opinions were issued,
the Wexford defendants, who were not parties to the appeal,
filed a motion seeking to redact that dollar figure from the
dissenting opinion and from as much of the public record as
possible, including the record of oral argument. The Wexford
defendants assert that plaintiff’s counsel’s answer about the
settlement amount being public was false. They assert that the
terms of the settlement agreement required the parties to keep
the terms confidential and that confidentiality was a material
and bargained-for term of the agreement.
Plaintiff’s attorney responded to the motion. She does not
dispute that the settlement agreement included a confidenti-
ality term. She points out, however, that the settlement agree-
ment with the Wexford defendants was “directly related” to a
governmental function that the Wexford defendants per-
formed for the Department of Corrections. That makes the
settlement agreement a public record under the Illinois Free-
dom of Information Act, 5 ILCS 140/1 et seq. The Illinois Su-
preme Court held that such settlement agreements are public
records in Rushton v. Department of Corrections, 2019 IL 124552,
160 N.E.3d 929 (2019). Rushton involved a similar settlement
between a prisoner’s estate and Wexford itself. The case was

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No. 23-1125 3
decided at least two years before the parties to this case
reached their supposedly confidential settlement. Plaintiff’s
counsel also points out that the terms of the settlement have
previously been distributed to other members of the civil
rights bar.
As a matter of Illinois law, the terms of the settlement
agreement were matters of public record under Rushton, not-
withstanding the agreement to keep those terms confidential.
Plaintiff’s counsel was correct to say the terms were public.
Accordingly, there is no reason to redact the dissenting opin-
ion or other records of this court to remove the terms of plain-
tiff’s settlement with the Wexford defendants.
The motion by the Wexford defendants is denied.

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