Siding with a journalism teacher [Stephen Flanagan Jackson] who challenged secrecy in the case, the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that U.S. District Judge Karon Bowdre overstepped her authority by sealing the documents in a lawsuit against Drummond Ltd., which operates a mine in Colombia....A Colombian labor union filed suit in 2002 in Birmingham with help from the United Steelworkers of America, blaming Drummond for the killings of three union leaders at the company's mine in northern Colombia in 2001. Bowdre sealed dozens of records in the case, making it virtually impossible to follow the lawsuit.