Will we see their divorce records?
Still a crook any way you look
More than a year after Donald Miles and his ex-wife’s divorce became final after 24 years of marriage, Miles wanted to keep those records private.
The Plano resident filed a motion last October to seal the divorce records, arguing the records being public would open him up to the possibility of identity theft, financial exposure and damage to his reputation because of details about “the marriage, bar exam, education, employment, disability, and abuse,” according to his court filings.
Collin County 401st District Judge George Flint denied that request two months later. Flint wrote that while exceptions can be made to keep family court records private when other court proceedings are presumed public, nothing happening in Miles’ divorce was exempt from public disclosure.
“The case at bar is no different than a multitude of divorce actions involving separate and community property divisions and determinations, all of which are generally court records open to the public,” Flint wrote.
Miles questioned why seven months later, in the same county, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — who’s running for the U.S. Senate — and his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, got to keep their divorce records private with no children under 18 involved.
“The disparate outcomes in Husband’s Motion to Seal Record — denied despite arguments concerning highly sensitive information — and the sealing of records in a purportedly more public case reveal an arbitrary application of legal standards by Texas district courts when protecting sensitive information in divorce proceedings,” Miles wrote in a filing with the Dallas-area appeals court.
Miles declined to comment for this story. Miles’ wife did not respond to KERA News’ request for comment.
The Texas Supreme Court’s denial Friday of Miles’ request to have his divorce records sealed leaves the issue unanswered in his case — which, according to the lower courts who have considered the case, has its own procedural problems. But the case highlights what family lawyers say is the unpredictability and high standard of proof required to keep even deeply personal court records private.
Court filings, like other government records in Texas, are generally presumed to be open to the public. The laws governing civil court procedure state court records can’t be sealed unless it can be proved that some specific reasoning outweighs the presumption of openness as well as any potential public health or safety risk that would come with sealing the records.
A party in a case also has to prove that sealing the records is the only way to protect a certain interest, and there is no other alternative, less restrictive way to do it.
Family law cases, however, can be exceptions to those rules.
[…]
Generally, arguments like Miles’ — concerns over financial exposure and potential identity theft — are weaker because parties can ask for some documents to be redacted or removed from the case file, said Austin family law attorney Christine Andresen. That’s less restrictive than sealing the record entirely.
But like many questions about what a judge might do, Andresen said, the question of whether divorce records will be sealed depends largely on the county and judge. People in the public eye might be able to make a better case to a judge for sealing their records than those who aren’t.
“It could be splashed all over, you know, TMZ or some tabloid or whatever,” Andresen said. “Whereas it’s rare that people look up their next-door neighbor’s court records.”
It’s a discretionary and unpredictable process, Andresen said, but judges across the political spectrum in Texas tend to maintain the state’s strong protections around open courtrooms and records.
Still, Leatherberry — like other family lawyers — said she was surprised the Paxtons successfully sealed their divorce records.
“It is a little bit harder for public figures,” she said. “It’s a little bit easier to argue that there will be an adverse effect on the general public.”
See here, here, and here for some background. It’s my understanding that there will be a hearing in the lawsuit filed by a group of media outlets next week, so we may soon find out some more. I am very much rooting for these records to be made public.
Also of interest: Just how did Ken Paxton get rich?
It’s no secret that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has faced scrutiny over financial dealings—including securities fraud charges—but newly released documents reveal a broader picture of how the public official became a multimillionaire.
Documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal detail seven years of Paxton’s financial practices. Most of the records, received via subpoena, have not been released to the public.
The analysis reveals that Paxton entered public office in 2002 with less than $175,000 (in assets), which quickly ballooned through stakes in partnerships, private companies and various investments.
Paxton’s official salary as Texas Attorney General is $153,750, according to the Texas Tribune’s government salary explorer. highlighting the stark contrast between his public earnings and the growth of his personal wealth.
A notable jump came from a 2004 investment in the police video technology company, WatchGuard. The investment stirred controversy as WatchGuard secured a contract in 2006 with the Texas Department of Public Safety while Paxton was an investor and a state legislator.
The investment ultimately paid off in 2019. After initially investing roughly $300,000 in the company and shifting the investment into a blind trust he and (then-wife) state Senator Angela Paxton established in 2015, Paxton cashed out, making $2.2 million after another company purchased WatchGuard.
Following the big win, the Paxtons and their blind trust went on a 10-month real-estate buying spree, snagging homes in Florida, Oklahoma, Utah and Hawaii—taking out mortgages to finance such purchases. They now own at least 11 residential properties around the country with an assessed value of $7.5 million, according to the WSJ.
The blind trust, dubbed the Esther Blind Trust, was supposed to operate independently, shielding the Paxtons from knowledge of their investments. According to the documents governing the trust, the trustee, Charles Loper III, could act without providing the pair with information beyond what is necessary for trust maintenance.
Although Paxton previously indicated that he did not know about the trust investments in his 2015 state ethics filing (the year it was established), text messages with Loper tell another story.
And Ken wasn’t the only one involved—Angela Paxton was tied up in communication with Loper, too.
This is a summary of the Wall Street Journal story, which is paywalled. I hope it triggers some followup reporting, surely there’s more to be found if one keeps looking. And that one-time payout from WatchGuard, was that really enough not to just buy all that real estate, but also maintain it and pay the property taxes on it? C’mon newsies, get going on this.
[Kibitzer van den Kourt has commented on the Paxton divorce case sealing before, so he will take the bait and obfuscate the mystery some more.]
THE GIST: Paxton Divorce file gets sealed, Husband’s motion to seal in Miles Divorce gets denied and the appellate court lets it stand. SCOTX is not interested either. See Miles v. Miles, No. 05-25-00181-CV (Tex.App.- Dallas April 25, 2025, pet. denied).
The article by reporter Toluwani Osibamowo is actually quite good in unveiling the inconsistent handling of the two cases: Miles vs. Paxton. Both are divorce cases originating from Collin County and as such are subject to the same Local Rules in addition to uniform statewide court rules and Dallas Court of Appeals jurisprudence that must be followed by all trial courts in the district. In both cases one party moved for sealing, but the outcome was different.
But journalists are typically not legally trained, so the nuances of substantive and procedural law are often missed. Here, the conclusion regarding the “high standard” for sealing is misleading.
There are actually at least three standards:
(1) the substantive sealing standard (criteria for granting or denying a motion to seal).
(2) the procedural sealing standard (how to get such an order, or go about seeking reversal of one that has previously been granted)
(3) the evidentiary standard (strength of evidence needed to prove a case for sealing).
Additionally, there is the question of who has the burden on the issue. As a general rule, it’s the burden of the movant FOR sealing. Such movant has to overcome the presumption of openness of court records, which is a substantive common law rule of long standing.
Mr. Miles filed several motions to seal, but they were denied without an oral hearing. So, his complaint was about that denial, which prevented him from offering live testimony and/or documentary exhibits at the hearing. The benefit of such a hearing is that he would get to explain (under oath or by way of argument only) why specific items in this divorce file should be sealed without leaving a paper trail. (That’s because the reporter’s record is not publicly posted even if there is an appeal and is not available on re:searchTX either because the court reporter submits it through a separate portal. And if there is no appeal, the reporter’s record will in effect remain “secret” because it’s expensive to get it done).
Additionally, published procedures of the Collin County district courts instructs litigants to request a hearing on a motion to seal, so Miles had good reason to ask for and expect one. But the court of appeals concluded that it’s no big deal and that it was okay for the judge to decide the motion “upon submission.” So, the evidentiary standard did not even come into play. The husband’s motion was DENIED based solely on what he alleged in it (which the district judge found insufficient) while the motion to seal in the Paxton divorce was GRANTED immediately, apparently also without any evidence being taken, and without even any specifics mentioned in Angela Paxton’s motion as to what info she considered sensitive.
Donald Miles’ motion and denial orders can be found under his appellate case number, which is 05-25-00181-CV. Angela’s motion can be found online because someone got a copy before the sealing order was signed. So it’s no secret that this was nothing but a boilerplate give-us-because-we-want-it motion.
Here is this kibitzer’s take on the matter: Donald Miles’ pro se motion was actually better than Angela’s attorney-drafted one (but only slightly) because it actually articulated his concerns about specific information being accessible to the public. That said, the trial judge’s ruling was likely correct for the reasons explained below. Both motions should have been denied for failure to make a persuasive case for sealing in denigration of open access of court records. Alas, the Fifth Court of Appeals has since ruled that court records in divorce cases are not really court records and can (apparently) be sealed willy-nilly, never mind rule 76a and the HouseCanary precedent from the supreme court. More on that some other time.
TRCP 76a – THE SEALING RULE
Rule 76a of Texas Rules of Civil Procedure was adopted in 1990 on recommendations of the Supreme Court Advisory Committee (a court-affiliated advisory body composed mostly of judges and attorneys), and governs sealing (and unsealing) motions generally. The principle of open access to courts and its work products, however, is much older. At the time, of course, all court filings, orders, and judgments were paper-based, rather than in PDF.
Since 1990, Rule 76a sets forth both procedures for motions to seal/unseal court records, as well as the substantive sealing standards, which includes the presumption of openness and the criteria a successful sealing motion must satisfy (in subsection 1 of a total of 9).
In the leading case on Rule 76a, which is HouseCanary v. Title Source, the Texas Supreme Court clarified that the procedures set forth in the rule must be followed even if the sealing standard (i.e., the considerations or criteria for granting/denying relief) are specified in some statute (in that case it was the Texas version of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act), at least as long as the statute providing for protection of information does not establish its own procedures for obtaining a sealing order.
The TUTSA does not set forth an alternative path for sealing, so rule 76a had to be followed except for the presumption that court records (that contain trade secrets) are public because the very purpose of the TUTSA (a statute, rather than a court rule) is to protect such secrets. So the SCOTX held that only the sealing standard of rule 76a (the requirements for sealing under subsection 1 based on the presumption in favor of public access) are superseded by the TUTSA. The remainder of rule 76a applies in the absence of an irreconcilable conflict with a statute.
How is this relevant to the divorcing spouses in the Paxton and Miles cases?
Well, the Texas Family Code also has sealing provisions, but not in the chapter that governs divorces without children. Although the appellate court did not reach that issue, the trial court in Miles v. Miles was likely correct in concluding that Mr. Miles’ sealing motion should be denied because the family code does not provide statutory authority for the sealing of divorce files (or parts thereof), and that Miles had not offered any other viable legal grounds for sealing under some other statute (such as HIPAA or other confidentiality statutes).
But neither did Angela Paxton in her motion to seal her divorce file. We know that because a copy of the motion has been “leaked” (Under rule 76a, it was not supposed to be sealed in the first place).
WHAT’S HIDDEN IN THE PAXTON DIVORCE FILE ?
Leaving alone the anonymous “Member of the Public”, there are now nine (9) intervenors in the Paxton divorce clamoring for the unsealing of the file.
Based on the trial court docket, however, it’s highly questionable if there is much in it that’s worth digging for and spending attorneys fees on.
As for Angela and Ken’s pleadings, they are already in the public domain.
Any family law attorney can tell you that Angela’s petition is utterly unremarkable. Comes straight from a document assembly system if not from the Family Law Section’s forms/template collection of the Texas Family Law Practice Manual. Nothing juicy in it other than an allegation of adultery, which is a recognized “fault” ground for divorce in Texas. But she also pleads for “no fault” divorce (irreconcilable differences), so the court can grant the divorce on that basis, with no need for convincing proof of extramarital coitus. In any event, the affair rumours and facts stemming from the time of the impeachment proceeding is old news, and another affair would just be cumulative.
While some folks may fret over other people’s straying from the marital bed or the shirking of conjugal duties (men, quietly), it’s business as usual in divorce court. Nothing special, not to mention extraordinary. Biblical grounds, of course, could fuel the lurid imagination, but they are not a recognized ground for divorce in the Family Code unless they are recast in more specific terms to meet legal definitions. Also, the “heartbalm” tort also known as alienations of affections (suing the other woman for husband-thievery) has long been abolished.
What’s arguably surprising is that Ken Paxton’s answer is in the nature of a general denial, rather than a counterpetition for divorce. That means that Angela can unilaterally drop the case (nonsuit) at any time and then the court case will be over, leaving the marriage legally intact. The Intervenors could continue to fight for access, but what for? Nothing further would be filed.
MOOT INTERVENTIONS TO UNSEAL THE FILE CONTENTS
For all practical purposes, the petitions for unsealing by the Center for Accountability and the sundry media establishments (incl. the Texas Tribune) are moot, at least as far as what’s currently in the divorce file because the parties’ pleadings and Angela’s motions are already in the public domain, and so are the pleadings of the Intervenors (who posted them on the web themselves even though they are supposed to be sealed as well).
That leaves the question of what might yet be filed in the Paxton divorce case in the future, assuming the case proceeds at all. But both parties and their attorneys are now on guard and are going to be wary about what they file because they have no assurance that the sealing order won’t be lifted eventually (a hearing to unseal is set for December shortly before the holidays). Obviously, parties represented by smart attorneys will adjust their litigation strategy and tactics dynamically when things happen that weren’t anticipated, or not fully and correctly.
AVOIDING THE CREATION OF A PAPER/PDF TRAIL IN THE FIRST INSTANCE
According to one docket entry, the Paxtons have already reached a formal agreement concerning mediation. The general rule is that what happens in mediation stays in mediation even if the venue is not sin city. At best the outcome (mediated settlement agreement and divorce decree based on it) will become part of the divorce file. Not any of the negotiations or settlement demands or position statements or notes shuttled back and forth if they don’t do it face-to-face.
Presumably the MDA and conforming decree will have to divide all community property and confirm separate property, but to the extent real estate is involved, that information is already recorded in the county clerk’s offices where the properties are situated. So, there may not be much there, and the Wall Street Journal has already investigated the Paxton assets without having to rely on divorce file content, such as sworn inventories.
So, substantively speaking, there may not be much bang for the buck. Nor much mystery for that matter.