Millions of documents that are now under seal in the sprawling Prempro litigation could be released by a Florida court due to a clerical misstep and a unique state statute. Prempro, you may recall, was linked to breast cancer and was sold by Wyeth, which is now owned by Pfizer. More than 9,000 women have sued and most of the cases are in federal courts in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Arkansas.

The case of Loretta Esposito, a 63-year-old Clearwater resident who died of breast cancer in 2006, is the only Prempro case in a Florida court, which means it may be subject it to the state’s Sunshine in Litigation law, according to The St. Petersburg Times, which adds that this prohibits the court from keeping papers secret if they concern a public hazard.

Citing this statute, Esposito’s lawyers have refused to agree to the confidentiality order Wyeth has required other plaintiffs’ attorneys to sign before giving them access to an estimated 16 million discovery documents, the paper writes. A hearing is scheduled for Monday.

In a motion opposing the hearing, Wyeth lawyers wrote, “Even assuming that Prempro is a ‘public hazard,’ there is no information in the underlying documents that would provide a woman taking Prempro today information about the risks of Prempro that is not already known.” But after listening to a similar argument from a Wyeth attorney last month, Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Anthony Rondolino asked: “How can you be saying this is secret if you’re saying the public knows about it?”