Rule 84.015.Redaction requirements.

Filing something in a Missouri court means putting it, at least potentially, before the public. Rule 84.015 makes the filer responsible for stripping out confidential information before that happens. Under the version of the rule in effect through June 2026, the filer must redact information made confidential by statute, court rule, order, or other law — the rule lists Social Security numbers, driver’s license, state identification, and taxpayer identification numbers, passport numbers, financial account and card numbers and their access codes, dates of birth, the names of minors, identifying details of informants, victims, witnesses, and protected persons, and case numbers tied to confidential, expunged, or sealed records. It also flags medical, employment, financial, and trade-secret material as categories that call for caution even though they aren’t listed as mandatory redactions.

The mechanics work the same way under both versions of the rule. Redactions must be obvious on the face of the document, and if the filer needs to refer back to the redacted material, a generic descriptor stands in for it. Alongside the redacted filing, the filer must submit a confidential redacted-information filing sheet — either the unredacted version attached to it, or an explanation of exactly what was taken out and where. Every filer must also certify compliance, either automatically through the electronic filing system or, for filers who don’t use that system, on a paper form.

A revised version of the rule takes effect July 1, 2026. It ties the redaction duty to definitions in Court Operating Rule 4.24, distinguishing a “confidential record” from “confidential information” within an otherwise public filing, and it narrows the room for discretionary redactions beyond those categories — anything else needs the court’s leave for good cause. It also adds a formal process for challenging a bad redaction: any party, or the court on its own motion, can move to correct an improperly redacted filing, the court must rule within 30 days, and the court can sanction a filer who acted in bad faith by over-redacting or under-redacting. While that motion is pending, the clerk makes the filing inaccessible to the public. The revised rule also exempts transcripts of open court proceedings from the redaction requirement up front, though a party can still move afterward to redact confidential information from a transcript using the same procedure.

Only the revised version spells out two further protections: it excuses judges and judicial court staff from having to certify compliance or file a redacted-information sheet, and it states directly that courts don’t review every filing to police redactions and cannot refuse a filing on that basis — that job belongs to the filer. The version in effect until July 2026 already places the redaction duty on the filer alone, but it does not include either of those two provisions.