On October 31, 2000, WLF filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, urging that court not to order the release of a company’s trade secret documents based solely on the news media’s argument that the public may have a strong interest in seeing the documents. WLF argued that internal company documents are not fair game for public release simply because they have been made available to the opposing party in a lawsuit — unless the documents become evidence in a public trial. WLF argued that to the extent that public safety requires the release of company documents, the release should be ordered by the appropriate government regulatory agency. On August 28, 2001, the appeals court ruled in WLF’s favor, overturning the lower-court ruling that had ordered the public release of a company’s trade secret documents.