Definition: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Input: "I have a reputation for being able to get people together and to talk and work together," Price said at the time, "and that's important when you have nine justices who all have strong opinions about the law." ||||| A Spokane County Superior Court judge sued his neighbor over cat pee, then successfully argued to have the case records sealed from public view. 
  
 A Friday hearing could determine whether those records stay closed. 
  
 The case began last year when Judge Michael Price and his wife, Claire, sought a “restraining order” against their neighbor’s cat because the animal was routinely using the back porch of their South Hill home as a litter box, according to the couple’s attorney, Bob Dunn. 
  
 “It got to the point where the Price family couldn’t go outside and enjoy themselves because of the smell,” said Dunn, who characterized the case as “a silly dispute between neighbors.” 
  
 An employee with the Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Service confirmed that animal control responded to Price’s address at least once last year for a “cat at large.” 
  
 Said Dunn, “There’s a city ordinance that says you got to keep your cat on a leash if you let it outside, and a lot of people don’t know that.” 
  
 The cat’s owner, Jennifer Tanaka-Fees, who shares a backyard fence with the Price family, declined to comment. So did her attorney, Jeffry Finer. 
  
 A message left with Michael Price’s chambers was not immediately returned Wednesday. And attorney Steven Hughes, who represented Price during most of the legal proceedings, referred questions to Dunn. 
  
 The legal case was recently resolved, but the outcome wasn’t immediately clear. Dunn said there was no trial and no one recovered financial damages. 
  
 Judge Patrick Monasmith, who visited from Stevens County to hear the case, ordered almost all of the case records sealed in November. 
  
 That two-page sealing order appears to be the only publicly accessible document in the case. In it, Monasmith wrote that he was “mindful of pertinent case law and statutory authority” and named four previous Washington cases that challenged sealing orders, but he did not elaborate on his reasoning. 
  
 Dunn said Price wanted the records sealed because he didn’t want personal information known to criminals seeking retaliation for their prison sentences. 
  
 “The case was put under seal to protect Judge Price’s identity and where he lives, being that he’s involved in felony sentencings,” Dunn said. 
  
 He added that Price, who was appointed to the Superior Court in 2003, typically deals with more serious legal matters. 
  
 “He’s presided over some of the most notorious murder cases in Spokane County in the past few years,” Dunn said. “I think it’s probably an embarrassment that he had to take an action against his neighbor.” 
  
 Dunn also downplayed the feline fiasco, calling it “much ado about nothing.” 
  
 Eugene Volokh, meanwhile, believes people have a right to know what’s in those court records. 
  
 Volokh, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who runs a popular blog called the Volokh Conspiracy, has filed a lengthy motion to unseal the case, which Judge Monasmith is expected to consider during a hearing on Friday afternoon. 
  
 “I think that the sealing order is incorrect under Washington law and under the First Amendment,” said Volokh, who’s known as an authority on free speech issues and recently intervened to unseal a libel case in Nevada. 
  
 “I’m not a lawyer in Washington, but because I’m intervening on my own behalf, I believe I’m entitled to do that,” Volokh said. “Everybody has an individual right to get access to court files.” 
  
 The hearing is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. ||||| A case that began with cat pee on a judge’s porch took another unusual turn Friday when the judge hearing the case recused himself due to a potential conflict of interest. 
  
 As it turns out, both judges have been represented by the same attorney in separate legal matters. 
  
 Judge Patrick Monasmith, who usually presides in Stevens County Superior Court, had been expected to decide whether to unseal a case brought by Spokane County Superior Judge Michael Price against Price’s neighbor on the South Hill. Price blamed his neighbor’s cat for using his back porch as a litter box, then successfully argued to have the case records sealed. 
  
 Monasmith bowed out of the case during a brief hearing Friday, revealing that attorney Bob Dunn recently represented him in pleadings before the state Supreme Court, and that there is a “companion matter in the appellate court which may or may not involve continuing representation by Mr. Dunn and/or his office.” 
  
 Dunn also has been representing Price in the cat pee case for about a week, following the departure of Price’s previous attorney, Steven Hughes. 
  
 “It seems to me that no litigant should have to wonder whether the judge has a special relationship of one kind or another with the attorney for a party,” Monasmith said at Friday’s hearing. “So this, to me, was a mandatory recusal.” 
  
 It wasn’t clear what kind of matter Monasmith and Dunn had before the Supreme Court, but Monasmith said it had been resolved “favorably.” 
  
 Cat pee on Spokane County judge’s porch prompts suit; court seals case A Spokane County Superior Court judge sued his neighbor over cat pee, then successfully argued to have the case records sealed from public view. A hearing on Friday could determine whether those records stay hidden. | Read more » 
  
 Dunn attended the hearing by phone and did not respond to a message seeking comment shortly afterward. 
  
 Monasmith ordered almost all of the records in the Price case banned from public disclosure in November. A prominent legal scholar filed a motion last month to unseal the case on First Amendment grounds. 
  
 On Friday, Monasmith said if he didn’t have to recuse himself, he would have considered the motion by Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. 
  
 “When I received Professor Volokh’s pleadings a couple weeks ago, and our Stevens County court administrator started working out a hearing date, I observed that every judge should be open to the notion that they make mistakes, and if they did, they ought to be able to examine them,” Monasmith said. 
  
 The sealing order will remain in effect at least until a new judge is assigned to the case. Like Monasmith, the judge will have to visit from another county to avoid having one of Price’s fellow Spokane County judges hear the case, which also could present a conflict of interest. 
  
 “I have no way of knowing how long that will take, and I again apologize for what I know will be an inevitable delay,” Monasmith said. “But perhaps the parties could take a step back, and maybe be able to work something out without protracted litigation.” 
  
 Price was appointed to Spokane County Superior Court in 2003, and in 2014 he was a finalist for a vacant seat on the state Supreme Court. He did not attend Friday’s hearing. 
  
 The cat pee case is not the first personal legal matter that Price has had sealed from public view. In 2005, he convinced a Lincoln County court commissioner to seal his divorce filings, a move that some at the time called unconstitutional. |||||
Output:
It falls under the umbrella of typical neighborly quarrels: Homeowner 1 is angered at Homeowner 2, whose cat is peeing on Homeowner 1's back porch. What elevates the argument occurring in Spokane, Wash., isn't just that a lawsuit was involved—but that it was sealed. The Los Angeles Times has the story, in which Homeowner 1 happens to be Spokane County Superior Court Judge Michael Price, who alleged his neighbor's cat wasn't deterred by the fence between the two homes and was making his back porch reek of urine and unusable. Price reportedly sought a restraining order against Jennifer Tanaka-Fees in order to restrain her cat, and that became the lawsuit, which has been settled—and the whole thing was sealed in November. Now UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh is trying to reverse that after learning about the case from Tanaka-Fees' lawyer. He tells the Times he "found no justification for the sealing," which he sees out of step with the First Amendment. A hearing on Volokh's motion to unseal the case records hit a roadblock Friday when Judge Patrick Monasmith, who originally sealed them, recused himself over a conflict of interest with Price's attorney, Bob Dunn, reports the Spokesman-Review. A new judge will be put on the case. In the meantime, the Spokesman-Review quotes Dunn as saying the records needed to be sealed to keep Price's address from vengeful criminals whom Price has sentenced. "He's presided over some of the most notorious murder cases in Spokane County in the past few years," Dunn said.