Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-05-05197/USCOURTS-caDC-05-05197-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 441
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Voting
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 27, 2006 Decided June 16, 2006

No. 05-5197

BASHE ABDI YOUSUF, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

v.

MOHAMED ALI SAMANTAR AND

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

APPELLEES

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 05mc00110)

Robert R. Vieth argued the cause for appellants. With him

on the briefs were Tara M. Lee, Lori R. Ploeger, and Michael

Traynor.

H. Thomas Byron, III, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,

argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Peter

D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General, Kenneth L. Wainstein,

U.S. Attorney, and Douglas N. Letter, Attorney.

John S. Mills was on the brief for amici curiae The

Educational Fund To Stop Gun Violence and National Security

Archive in support of appellants. Meredith Fuchs, Kate A.

Martin, and Sayre Weaver entered appearances.

USCA Case #05-5197 Document #974559 Filed: 06/16/2006 Page 1 of 17
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Before: GINSBURG, Chief Judge, and ROGERS and BROWN,

Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge GINSBURG.

GINSBURG, Chief Judge: The drafters of the Federal Rules

of Civil Procedure believed Rule 45 was “so simple that it did

not need any discussion” at the symposia they held to introduce

the Rules in 1938. American Bar Association, Federal Rules of

Civil Procedure, Proceedings of the [American Bar Association]

Institute [on Federal Rules] at Washington, D.C. and of the

Symposium at New York City 313 (Edward H. Hammond ed.)

(1939). The dispute before us today, in which plaintiff Bashe

Abdi Yousuf and others challenge the district court’s denial of

their motion to compel compliance with a subpoena served upon

the U.S. Department of State under Rule 45, suggests the

framers underestimated the creativity of the United States when

faced with a subpoena duces tecum issued in a case to which it

is not a party. That creativity notwithstanding, we hold the

United States is a “person” within the meaning of Rule 45 -- as

it has been held to be under every Rule thus far litigated. Hence,

we reverse the judgment of the district court and remand the

case for further proceedings.

I. Background

This appeal arises from litigation pending in the United

States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, where

the plaintiffs, who are Somali nationals, brought suit under the

Torture Victim Protection Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1350 note, and the

Alien Tort Statute, id. § 1350, against Mohamed Ali Samantar

for acts he allegedly took as an official in the Somali

government led by President Mohamed Siad Barre. During

discovery the plaintiffs sought from the U.S. Department of

State a variety of documents related to (1) human rights abuses

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committed by the Somali armed forces; (2) the interaction

between the United States and representatives of the Siad Barre

regime; and (3) “the formal structure and organization of the

Somali government and political system and Armed Forces.” 

To this end the plaintiffs both served the State Department with

a subpoena pursuant to Rule 45 and submitted a request pursuant

to the Department’s so-called Touhy regulations, 22 C.F.R. §§

172.1-5 (setting forth agency procedures for responding to

document requests). See United States ex. rel. Touhy v. Ragen,

340 U.S. 462, 468-70 (1951) (upholding regulation prohibiting

agency employees from releasing documents without consent of

agency head).

The United States, on the Department’s behalf, objected to

the subpoena, whereupon the plaintiffs filed in the District Court

for the District of Columbia a motion to compel compliance.

See Fed. R. Civ. P. 45(c)(2)(B). The Government opposed the

motion on the grounds it was not a “person” subject to subpoena

under Rule 45; the plaintiffs had not followed proper procedures

in subpoenaing the Department; and the subpoena was unduly

burdensome. The plaintiffs then argued the Government had

forfeited its objections to the subpoena because it had not raised

them within the time limit set by Rule 45(c)(2)(B) and, in any

event, maintained the subpoena was in all respects proper.

The district court denied the plaintiffs’ motion to compel.

It began by recognizing a “longstanding interpretive

presumption,” Al Fayed v. CIA, 229 F.3d 272, 274 (D.C. Cir.

2000), that, as used in a statute, the term “person” does not

include the United States. Holding the presumption unrebutted

in this case, the court did not reach the Government’s other

objections to the subpoena. The plaintiffs now appeal.

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II. Analysis

The plaintiffs argue the district court erred in denying their

motion because (1) the Government forfeited its objections

when it failed to raise them in a timely manner and (2) the

Government is a “person” for purposes of Rule 45. With regard

to the latter point, the plaintiffs contend the district court should

not have applied the interpretive presumption to Rule 45 and,

even if the presumption is applicable, it has been overcome.

The Government in turn denies it forfeited its objections and

defends the decision of the district court.

We review the district court’s discovery orders for abuse of

discretion, Linder v. Calero-Portocarrero, 251 F.3d 178, 181

(D.C. Cir. 2001), except as to questions of law -- such as the

proper interpretation of Rule 45 -- which we decide de novo.

Eldred v. Reno, 239 F.3d 372, 374 (D.C. Cir. 2001). We must

begin our analysis, however, with the matter of our jurisdiction.

See Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 94-95

(1998).

A. Jurisdiction

At oral argument the Government asserted that, because the

State Department had not finished reviewing the plaintiffs’

document request pursuant to its Touhy regulations before the

plaintiffs filed their motion to compel compliance with the

subpoena, the Department had not as of then taken any final

action subject to judicial review. Despite the Government’s

tardiness in presenting this objection, we must consider it

because, under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. §

704, without final agency action we do not have jurisdiction to

proceed. 

The objection need not long detain us, however. An

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agency’s denial of a request is final agency action for the

purpose of § 704. See, e.g., Envtl. Def. Fund v. Reilly, 909 F.2d

1497, 1504 n.97 (D.C. Cir. 1990) (holding agency’s denial of

petition for rulemaking final per § 704). Indeed, the Fourth

Circuit has held specifically that an agency’s refusal to comply

with a subpoena constitutes “final agency action ... ripe for ...

review under the APA.” COMSAT Corp. v. Nat’l Sci. Found.,

190 F.3d 269, 275 (1999). We agree. The requirement that an

agency’s action be “final” prevents improper judicial intrusion

into the administrative decisionmaking process. Ciba-Geigy

Corp. v. EPA, 801 F.2d 430, 436 (D.C. Cir. 1986). With regard

to the subpoena here at issue, that process was completed on

January 14, 2005, when the counsel for the Department of State

sent a letter taking the position that, because the Government is

not a “person” subject to Rule 45, subpoenas “are not proper

procedural devices through which to seek information from a

federal agency.” It follows that such action is final and

reviewable under the APA, regardless whether the Department

of State was then still processing the plaintiffs’ parallel request

under its Touhy regulations.

B. Forfeiture

The plaintiffs argue that the Government forfeited its

objections to the subpoena, which was served on December 22,

2004, because it did not raise those objections until January 14,

2005, which was beyond the time limit in Rule 45(c)(2)(B):

“[A] person commanded to produce and permit inspection and

copying [of documents] may, within 14 days after service of the

subpoena ... [serve a] written objection to [the] inspection or

copying.” See also Tuite v. Henry, 98 F.3d 1411, 1416 (D.C.

Cir. 1996) (discussing requirement).

The Government first contends it is not bound by Rule 45(c)

because it is not a “person” for purposes of the Rule.

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Furthermore, the Government asserts the time limit applies only

to objections related “to the substance of the subpoena [and] ...

not to its ultimate enforcement.” Finally, the Government

argues forfeiture under Rule 45 is “not automatic” and can be

excused in the “unusual circumstances” of this case, where the

“subpoena was overbroad, the State Department is a nonparty

acting in good faith, and counsel for the government discussed

the processing of the document requests [with plaintiffs’

counsel] before this subpoena-enforcement litigation was

initiated.” As the Government further notes by way of

mitigation, the plaintiffs “served the subpoena on December 22,

2004, in the midst of the holiday period, and it was not received

by the Department of Justice [as counsel to the Department of

State] until January 13, 2005. An objection letter was sent the

very next day,” after counsel had conversed by telephone.

We begin with the Government’s argument that the time

limit set by Rule 45(c)(2)(B) applies only to objections

concerning “the substance of the subpoena,” by which it means

objections such as “privilege or relevance or burden” that go to

the “inspection or copying ... of designated materials”; from

these it distinguishes objections going to the “ultimate

enforcement” of the subpoena, the only example given being the

current objection that the Government is not subject to a

nonparty subpoena. The Government defends its distinction on

the ground that objections going to enforcement cannot “be

resolved or fleshed out before a dispute reaches the district

court.” The significance of this statement eludes us, and the

Government adduces not a single case in support of it. Such

dictum as we can find is against it. See In re DG Acquisition

Corp., 151 F.3d 75, 81 (2d Cir. 1998) (stating, relative to a

belated claim of privilege, the Rule “require[s] the recipient of

a subpoena to raise all objections at once, rather than in

staggered batches, so that discovery does not become a

‘game’”).

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We need not accept the Government’s distinction, however,

in order to consider its present objection. For the Government

is correct that the district court may, “in unusual circumstances

and for good cause,” consider an untimely objection to a

subpoena. Concord Boat Corp. v. Brunswick Corp., 169 F.R.D.

44, 48 (S.D.N.Y. 1996); see 9 James W. Moore et al., Moore’s

Federal Practice § 45.04[2] (3d ed. 2004). Certain factors may

guide the district court’s discretion, for example, whether (1) the

subpoena is “overbroad on its face and exceeds the bounds of

fair discovery”; (2) the subpoenaed witness is a nonparty acting

in good faith; and (3) counsel for the witness was in contact with

counsel for the party issuing the subpoena prior to filing its

formal objection. Concord Boat, 169 F.R.D. at 48 (internal

quotation marks omitted); see 9 Moore et al. § 45.04[2];

Alexander v. FBI, 186 F.R.D. 21, 34-36 (D.D.C. 1998) (no

waiver where witness was non-party and subpoena was not

limited to relevant materials).

Here, the Government is a nonparty acting in good faith; the

subpoena is broad enough at least to raise a question of

overbreadth; and counsel for the Department acted promptly to

contact counsel for the plaintiffs and to file his objections

(though the State Department appears not to have acted with

equal alacrity). Therefore, we cannot say the district court here

abused its discretion in considering the Government’s

objections. And so we are obliged to do the same.

C. The Applicability of the Interpretive Presumption

Rule 45(a)(1)(C) provides that every subpoena shall:

[C]ommand each person to whom it is directed to

attend and give testimony or to produce and permit

inspection and copying of designated books,

documents or tangible things in the possession, custody

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or control of that person ....

Fed. R. Civ. P. 45(a)(1)(C) (emphases added). The Government

argues it is not a “person” subject to this Rule, noting that

“statutes employing the [word ‘person’] are ordinarily construed

to exclude” the sovereign. United States v. Cooper Corp., 312

U.S. 600, 604 (1941). The Government analogizes this case to

Al Fayed, 229 F.3d 272, where we applied the presumption that

the Government is not a “person” and the Dictionary Act, 1

U.S.C. § 1, in construing 28 U.S.C. § 1782, which provides the

“district court of the district in which a person resides or is

found may order him ... to produce a document or other thing for

use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal.” See

Linder, 251 F.3d at 180-81 (discussing Al Fayed and

recognizing open question of applicability of Rule 45 to

Government).

The plaintiffs argue the Dictionary Act and the interpretive

presumption that the Government is not a “person” are

inapplicable to Rule 45 because the Federal Rules “resulted

from a judicial act, not legislation.” Even if the presumption

does apply, they note the presumption can be overcome if “[t]he

purpose, the subject matter, the context, [and] the legislative

history ... indicate an intent, by the use of the term, to bring [the]

state or nation within the scope of the law.” Cooper Corp., 312

U.S. at 605. Here, they contend, the purpose, context, and

history of Rule 45 bespeak an intent to treat the Government as

a “person.”

At the outset, we note that we have found no caselaw

applying the Dictionary Act to the Federal Rules, and it is

doubtful, though surely not clear, whether the Rules are properly

considered an “Act of Congress” subject to that Act, 1 U.S.C. §

1. In the Rules Enabling Act, 28 U.S.C. § 723(b) (1934), the

Congress gave “the Supreme Court of the United States ... the

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power to prescribe, by general rules,” the “process” to be

followed in the district courts of the United States. The

Congress additionally provided that the rules governing civil

procedure would not go into effect “until they shall have been

reported to Congress by the Attorney General at the beginning

of a regular session thereof and until after the close of such

session.” Id. § 723(c). Therefore, although the Congress did not

draft and did not affirmatively adopt the Federal Rules of Civil

Procedure, see 4 Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller,

Federal Practice & Procedure § 1004 (3d ed. 2002), it did

authorize their creation, and consequently it is not entirely clear

the definitions of the Dictionary Act should not apply to the

Rules. 

This is not a question we need decide today, however.

Because the definition of “person” in the Dictionary Act, 1

U.S.C. § 1 (defining “person” to include “corporations,

companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint

stock companies, as well as individuals”), upon which the

Government relies was passed in 1947, the framers of Rule 45

were not guided by it when, in 1937, they provided that a

“person” may be subpoenaed to testify or to produce documents.

Fed. R. Civ. P. 45(a)(1)(C). The definition in place at the time

the Rules were adopted was broader, stating that “in all acts

hereafter passed ... the word ‘person’ may extend and be applied

to bodies politic and corporate ... unless the context shows that

such words were intended to be used in a more limited sense.”

Act of Feb. 25, 1871, § 2, 16 Stat. 431. As the Supreme Court

explained in Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, 491

U.S. 58, 69 n.9 (1989), conflicting authorities from that time

render the definition “ambiguous” with regard to whether it

includes the States within its reach. Cf. Cooper Corp., 312 U.S.

at 605 (looking at various factors to discern intent “to bring state

or nation within the scope of the law”). Regardless whether the

plaintiffs are correct in positing broadly that the current

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definition of “person” in the Dictionary Act does not apply to

judicially-adopted rules, therefore, we can agree more narrowly

that it does not apply to a Rule promulgated before the current

version of the Act was passed, see Will, 491 U.S. at 69-70

(applying original definition to interpret statute passed before

1947), and it does not control our analysis in this case.

Next, we agree with the plaintiffs that the district court

erred in presuming the Government is not a “person” covered by

Rule 45. As the Supreme Court made clear in Nardone v.

United States, 302 U.S. 379 (1937) (rejecting Government’s

invocation of presumption where it would have made statute

prohibiting wire-tapping presumptively inapplicable to

Government), which was issued the same day the Court adopted

the Federal Rules, at common law the Government was

presumed not to be a “person” bound by statute in only two

types of cases: (1) where the statute, “if not so limited, would

deprive the sovereign of a recognized or established prerogative

title or interest,” such as a statute of limitations; and (2) where

deeming the Government a “person” would “work obvious

absurdity as, for example, the application of a speed law to a

policeman pursuing a criminal or the driver of a fire engine

responding to an alarm.” Id. at 383-84; see also In re Vioxx

Prods. Liab. Litig., --- F.R.D. ----, 2006 WL 784878, at *6 (E.D.

La. Mar. 15, 2006) (analyzing Supreme Court cases to explain

why presumption was limited to the two situations there

identified).

Rule 45 falls into neither class. First, the Government has

no “established prerogative” not to respond when subpoenaed.

On the contrary, as Justice Frankfurter noted in his concurrence

in Touhy, the Government had agreed as early as 1900, see

Boske v. Comingore, 177 U.S. 459, 462, that records requested

for a suit in which it was not a party “could be secured by a

subpoena duces tecum to the head of the Treasury Department.”

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340 U.S. at 471-72 (quoting Brief for Appellee [in Boske v.

Comingore] at 49). Second, application of Rule 45 to the

Government would work no “obvious absurdity.” The Rules

were designed to provide a “liberal opportunity for discovery,”

Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957), and, as discussed

below, there is no indication the Government should be exempt

from the obligation of a nonparty to provide its evidence

pursuant to subpoena.

Because Rule 45 neither deprives the United States of an

“established prerogative” nor works an “obvious absurdity,”

therefore, the framers of the Rules would not have understood

their use of the term “person” presumptively to exclude the

Government. Our decision in Al Fayed, the centerpiece of the

Government’s argument, is in no wise contrary. The statute

being interpreted in that case, 28 U.S.C. § 1782 (1948), unlike

Rule 45, post-dated the amendment to the Dictionary Act, 1

U.S.C. § 1 (1947), that defines the word “person,” when used in

“any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise,”

to include “corporations, companies, associations, firms,

partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as

individuals,” but makes no mention of governments. See also

United States v. United Mine Workers of Am., 330 U.S. 258, 275

(1947) (“Congress made express provision [in the Dictionary

Act], for the term [‘person’] to extend to partnerships and

corporations .... The absence of any comparable provision

extending the term to sovereign governments implies that

Congress did not desire the term to extend to them”). In Al

Fayed, therefore, the Dictionary Act as amended in 1947

required that § 1782 be interpreted so as to exclude the

Government. As we have seen, however, Rule 45 is outside the

realm governed by the 1947 amendment to the Dictionary Act,

and, as noted above, the earlier version of that Act is ambiguous.

Therefore, we follow the guidance of the Supreme Court as to

when the Government is presumed not to be a “person,” and this

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is not such a case.

D. The “Person[s]” Subject to Rule 45

The question remains whether, the presumption aside, the

Government is a “person” bound by Rule 45. To answer this

question we turn to the customary tools of statutory

interpretation. Because the text of the Rule itself is unhelpful on

this score, we turn to the context in which the Rule resides, that

is, to the Rules as a whole.

The plaintiffs argue that because “person” is used

throughout the Rules to include the Government, that word

demands the same interpretation in Rule 45. In particular, they

point to Rule 4(i)(3)(A), which addresses a party’s failure to

serve “all persons required to be served in an action governed by

Rule 4(i)(2)(A),” which in turn governs “[s]ervice on an agency

or corporation of the United States.” The plaintiffs also direct

us to Rule 30, which allows a party to take “the testimony of any

person, including a party, by deposition” and compel “[t]he

attendance of witnesses ... by subpoena as provided in Rule 45.”

Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(a)(1). Rule 30(b)(6) is express that a party

may “in a subpoena name as the deponent a ... governmental

agency.” One district court, reading these two sections together,

recently concluded that “a party may take the deposition of a

governmental agency, whether a party or not, and compel the

attendance of [the government deponent] through the use of a

Rule 45 subpoena.” In re Vioxx, 2006 WL 784878, at *9. In the

plaintiffs’ view, Rule 30 thus makes clear the Government is a

“person” for purposes of Rule 45 as well. 

The Government responds to these specific points first with

the general observation: “[I]t is ... common experience that

identical words may be used in the same statute, or even in the

same section of a statute, with quite different meanings.” Grand

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Lodge of Int’l Ass’n of Machinists v. King, 335 F.2d 340, 344

(9th Cir. 1964). Somewhat more helpfully, the Government

suggests that, because “the rules as a whole address a wide range

of subjects, ... it would be unsurprising if the term ‘person’ were

employed to different ends in different rules.” For example, the

Government suggests we might construe Rule 30 to permit a

litigant to subpoena the Government when the Government is

itself a party to the litigation. Moreover, based upon the

Supreme Court’s instruction in Russello v. United States, 464

U.S. 16, 23 (1983) (where “Congress includes particular

language in one section of a statute but omits it in another

section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress

acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or

exclusion”), the Government argues the ambiguity of Rule 45,

when contrasted with the specific references to the United States

in Rules 4 and 30, is fatal to the plaintiffs’ claim. 

We do not disagree in principle with the Government’s

point that the meaning of the word “person” could vary from

one Rule to another. Still, we note, it is the “normal rule of

statutory construction that identical words used in different parts

of the same act are intended to have the same meaning.”

Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., Inc., 513 U.S. 561, 570 (1995) (internal

quotation marks omitted).

With respect to the Federal Rules in particular, the Supreme

Court has instructed that, except where doing so would “produce

absurd results,” “words and phrases ... must be given a

consistent usage and be read in pari materia[;] ... to do

otherwise would attribute a schizophrenic intent to the drafters.”

Marek v. Chesny, 473 U.S. 1, 21 (1985) (first emphasis added,

internal quotation marks omitted). As we have seen, there is

nothing absurd about applying Rule 45 to the Government. That

reading, moreover, aligns the interpretation of Rule 45 with that

of every other rule in which the word “person” means more than

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simply a natural person. (For an example of the latter sort, see

Rule 4(c)(2), providing that service may be effected by any

“person” meeting certain qualifications.) In addition to Rules

4(i)(3)(A) and 30(b)(6), see Carlson v. Tulalip Tribes of Wash.,

510 F.2d 1337, 1339 (9th Cir. 1975) (holding “United States is

a person described in Rule 19(a)(1), (2),” which governs

joinder); see also United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 340 U.S. 543,

556-57 (1951) (United States may be impleaded as third-party

defendant per Rule 14, which provides for “summons and

complaint to be served upon a person”); Roeder v. Islamic

Republic of Iran, 333 F.3d 228, 232-33 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (United

States may intervene as of right under Rule 24, which requires

“a person desiring to intervene [to] serve a motion,” see Fed. R.

Civ. P. 24(c)).

With the teaching of Marek v. Chesny in mind, we are most

loathe to depart from this “consistent usage” without a

compelling reason to believe the term “person” in Rule 45

should be understood differently than it is elsewhere throughout

the Rules or differently from one case to another depending

upon whether the United States is a party, see In re Vioxx, 2006

WL 784878, at *9. The Government attempts to offer such a

reason but its efforts fail to persuade.

First, that Rule 45 does not refer to the United States as do

Rules 4 and 30 is, contrary to the Government’s argument, of no

moment; as noted above, the United States has been held to be

a “person” within the meaning of Rule 19 although it is not

expressly named there. See Carlson, 510 F.2d at 1339. The

absence of such a reference in Rule 45, far from being

significant, is unexceptional.

Second, the Government points both to the Supreme Court’s

approval of regulations governing how an agency will respond

to document requests, see Touhy, 340 U.S. 462, and to the

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Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a) (providing

procedure for obtaining information from government agencies),

to show that the Government has in place “carefully calibrated

mechanisms for responding to requests for information.” From

this premise the Government argues that “silence in Rule 45

should not be construed to establish a mechanism bypassing

existing methods of requesting ... information from the

government as a nonparty.” Noting also that Touhy was decided

in 1951, 340 U.S. 462, and the FOIA was enacted in 1966, the

Government suggests that “when Rule 45 was initially adopted

in 1937, there was not even a background presumption that

government information should be disclosed when requested,”

from which it infers Rule 45 must not apply to the Government

as a nonparty.

This argument is both illogical and anachronistic. First, as

noted above, the Rules were designed in 1937 to provide a

“liberal opportunity for discovery.” Conley, 355 U.S. at 47.

Therefore, to say there was then no “background presumption

that government information should be disclosed when

requested” assumes the conclusion to the very question here at

issue. Second, the adoption, 14 and 29 years later, respectively,

of methods by which (1) an agency would respond to a subpoena

and (2) any person could obtain information from the

Government without having to give a reason for wanting it, tells

us nothing about whether parties in civil litigation had been

authorized in 1937 to subpoena the Government for information

demonstrably relevant to their cases. We do know, however,

that the Supreme Court in Touhy assumed a federal agency

could be subject to a third-party subpoena duces tecum, for

otherwise the agency would not need to promulgate regulations

for centralizing its response to such a subpoena. See 340 U.S.

at 464, 469. 

Moreover, before Touhy was decided, and long before the

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FOIA was enacted, such commentaries on the Rules as

considered the present issue suggested the Government is indeed

a “person” subject to Rule 45 regardless whether it is a party to

the litigation in which the subpoena is issued. Indeed, one

member of the Advisory Committee on Rules of Civil

Procedure, which drafted the Rules, concluded in his discussion

of “persons subject to deposition examination” -- which is to

say, according to the original version of Rule 26(a), “any person,

whether a party or not” -- that “there is probably the same right

to obtain discovery against the government and its officers and

agents as against private parties.” Edson R. Sunderland,

Discovery Before Trial Under the New Federal Rules, 15 Tenn.

L. Rev. 737, 742-43 (1939). Raoul Berger and Abe Krash later

reached the same conclusion: “[T]he terms of the third party

subpoena-deposition provisions are unqualified, and no

considerations of policy can afford an exemption to the

Government.” Government Immunity From Discovery, 59 Yale

L.J. 1451, 1465-66 (1950). The Government cites no

commentary to the contrary.

In sum, the “purpose, the subject matter, the context, [and]

the ... history [of Rule 45] ... indicate an intent, by the use of the

term [‘person’], to bring [the Government] within the scope” of

the Rule. Cooper Corp., 312 U.S. at 605.

III. Conclusion

The term “person” as used in the Federal Rules of Civil

Procedure consistently means not only natural persons and

business associations but also governments, including the United

States. Because the Government has given us no cause to ignore

the Supreme Court’s command that we interpret each Rule in

pari materia with the others, we hold the Government is a

“person” subject to subpoena under Rule 45 regardless whether

it is a party to the underlying litigation. Therefore, the

USCA Case #05-5197 Document #974559 Filed: 06/16/2006 Page 16 of 17
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plaintiffs’ motion to compel should not have been denied on the

ground that Rule 45 is inapplicable to the Department of State.

The case accordingly is remanded for further proceedings

consistent with this opinion.

So ordered.

USCA Case #05-5197 Document #974559 Filed: 06/16/2006 Page 17 of 17