Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-15-05128/USCOURTS-caDC-15-05128-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 895
Nature of Suit: Freedom of Information Act of 1974
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 14, 2016 Decided July 5, 2016

No. 15-5128

COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE,

APPELLANT

v.

OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:14-cv-00765)

Hans F. Bader argued the cause for appellant. With him on

the briefs was Sam Kazman.

KatieLynn Townsend argued the cause for amici curiae. 

With her on the brief were Bruce D. Brown, Peter Scheer,

Jonathan D. Hart, David McCraw, Barbara L. Camens, James

Cregan, Charles D. Tobin, and Michael Kovaka.

Daniel Tenny, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,

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

Benjamin C. Mizer, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney

General, Vincent H. Cohen, Jr., Acting U.S. Attorney at the time

the brief was filed, and Matthew M. Collette, Attorney.

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Before: SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge, and EDWARDS and

SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

SENTELLE.

Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN.

SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge: Competitive Enterprise

Institute appeals from a judgment of the district court dismissing

its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) action against the Office

of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Appellant contends

that the district court improperly ruled that documents which

might otherwise be government records for FOIA purposes need

not be searched for or turned over to the requestor because the

head of the defendant agency maintained the putative records on

a private email account in his name at a site other than the

government email site which the agency had searched. Because

we agree with plaintiff-appellant that an agency cannot shield its

records from search or disclosure under FOIA by the expedient

of storing them in a private email account controlled by the

agency head, we reverse the dismissal and remand the case for

further proceedings.

BACKGROUND

FOIA requires, subject to certain statutory exceptions, that

each federal agency upon a proper request for records “shall

make the records promptly available to any person.” 5 U.S.C.

§ 552(a)(3)(A). The statutory duty of disclosure imposed upon

the agencies includes the duty to “search for the records in

electronic form or format . . . .” 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(C). 

Appellant Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), in October of

2013, submitted a FOIA request for “all policy/OSTP-related

email sent to or from jholdren@whrc.org (including as cc: or

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bcc:).” J.A. at 35. The email address set forth in the FOIA

request is a nonofficial account maintained by John Holdren,

Director of OSTP, at Woods Hole Research Center. CEI had

learned from a Vaughn Index in another, earlier FOIA litigation

that the address had apparently been used for some work-related

correspondence.

In February of 2014, OSTP sent a response refusing to

provide records from the address on the basis that such records

were “beyond the reach of FOIA” because they were in an

“account” that “is under the control of the Woods Hole Research

Center, a private organization.” J.A. at 11. OSTP did not in its

response state that it had made any attempt to search for records

in that email account responsive to the FOIA request, nor has it

at any time in this litigation asserted any claim to have made

such a search. CEI exhausted administrative appeals and

brought the present litigation, seeking an injunction mandating

production of “[w]ork-related emails sent to or from the

account.” J.A. at 23. OSTP moved under Fed. R. Civ. P.

12(b)(6) to dismiss for failure to state a claim. OSTP argued

that because the email account at issue was “not under the

control of the agency,” its contents were not within the agency

documents required to be produced under FOIA, nor was the

agency capable of conducting a search. Appellee’s Br. at 1. The

district court agreed and granted the 12(b)(6) motion. CEI

timely appealed.

ANALYSIS

The basic task of a court in adjudicating alleged wrongful

withholdings under FOIA is framed under three Acts of

Congress. The Federal Records Act of 1950, 44 U.S.C. § 2901

et seq., authorizes the establishment of “records management

program[s]” and provides for the preservation of agency records. 

Kissinger v. Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the Press, 445

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U.S. 136, 147 (1980). A complementary statute, the Records

Disposal Act, 44 U.S.C. § 3314, provides the exclusive means

for record disposal. Id. Yet, neither the Federal Records Act

nor the Records Disposal Act contemplate a private right of

action for access to or recovery of federal records. Id. at 150. 

The FOIA itself, however, establishes the relevant private right. 

Jurisdiction under FOIA requires “a showing that an agency has

(1) ‘improperly’; (2) ‘withheld’; (3) ‘agency records.’” Id. at

150 (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B)). Our task, then, is to

determine whether the pleadings in the present case allege these

requirements sufficiently to survive a motion under Rule

12(b)(6). As applied to the present case, our attention, and that

of the district court, focuses first at this stage on whether the

agency’s refusal to undertake a search of the records of the

director’s private email account amounts to a “withholding,” and

specifically, an “improper” one.

At each stage of this litigation, appellee has argued that

“[d]ocuments on a nongovernmental email server are outside the

possession or control of federal agencies, and thus beyond the

scope of FOIA.” Appellee’s Br. at 14. In pursuing that defense,

appellee repeatedly refers to the email account as being “under

the control” of the Woods Hole Research Center, a private

entity. See, e.g., Appellee’s Br. at 6, 8. Appellant has

consistently challenged the logic of the proposition that the

director of an agency may place his work-related records beyond

the reach of FOIA for the simple expedient of using a private

email account rather than the official government

communications system. Although neither party is able to

produce a binding precedent in this court or the Supreme Court

addressing precisely the question before us, each has offered

cases in some way relevant to our consideration of the issue.

The government first offers Founding Church of

Scientology of Washington, D.C., Inc. v. Regan, 670 F.2d 1158

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(D.C. Cir. 1981), for the fundamental proposition that “[t]he

Freedom of Information Act empowers federal courts to compel

disclosure of agency records improperly withheld, but does not

confer authority upon the courts to command agencies to acquire

a possession or control of records they do not already have.” Id.

at 1163. While correct, and undoubtedly logical, Founding

Church does little to answer the question before us. A brief

comparison of the facts of that case with those at bar makes that

evident. In that case, the requestor sought documents from the

United States National Central Bureau (USNCB) of the

International Police Organization (Interpol) previously obtained

from foreign police agencies and concerning the plaintifforganization. Id. at 1159. It appears that there was no dispute

that the documents were in the possession of Interpol, not an

agency of the United States. It also is unsurprising that we

reversed a district court order directing the federal government

to obtain records from the international organization. This does

nothing to advise us as to whether an agency must turn over

email records housed in an email account of the agency head,

but at a nongovernmental domain.

This court in Founding Church, as did the government in its

brief, relied on Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom

of the Press, 445 U.S. 136 (1980). As the government urges in

its brief, the Kissinger decision “recognized that the FOIA does

not ‘furnish congressional intent to permit private actions to

recover records’ that are not within the agency’s ‘possession or

control.’” Appellee’s Br. at 15 (quoting Kissinger, 445 U.S. at

137-38, 155). Again, the quotation from the Supreme Court in

Kissinger obviously states the law, but is not controlling on the

facts before us. The records in Kissinger, the Secretary of

State’s notes concerning official telephone conversations, were

no longer in the custody of the Department of State or under the

control of Secretary Kissinger. See 445 U.S. at 155. The

documents in question had been donated to the Library of

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Congress, which was not a party to the action. Id. at 154-55. 

The Supreme Court unsurprisingly ruled that the Department did

not have to produce what it did not have. See id. at 158. Again,

that does not speak to the question before us.

Like our separately concurring colleague, we believe that

Kissinger is distinguishable. Indeed, we may believe this more

strongly than our colleague. As our colleague rightly observes,

in Kissinger, “the Secretary not only was ‘holding the

documents . . . at the time the requests were received,’ but he

was ‘holding the documents under a claim of right.’”

Concurring Op. at 4 (quoting Kissinger, 445 U.S. at 155)

(emphasis in concurrence). While this accurately states one

difference from the present case, we think it is not the only, or

even the most compelling difference.

Not only did the Secretary hold the document under a claim

of right, it appears that the Department had effectively ceded the

documents to him. As the Supreme Court relates:

The second FOIA request was filed on December 28

and 29, 1976, by the Military Audit Project (MAP) after

Kissinger publicly announced the gift of his telephone notes

to the United States and their placement in the Library of

Congress. The MAP request, filed with the Department of

State, sought records of all Kissinger’s conversations made

while Secretary of State and National Security Adviser. On

January 18, 1977, the Legal Adviser of the Department of

State denied the request on two grounds. First, he found

that the notes were not agency records. Second, the deposit

of the notes with the Library of Congress prior to the

request terminated the Department’s custody and control. 

The denial was affirmed on administrative appeal. 

The third FOIA request was filed on January 13, 1977,

by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

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(RCFP), the American Historical Association, the American

Political Science Association, and a number of other

journalists (collectively referred to as the RCFP requesters). 

This request also sought production of the telephone notes

made by Kissinger both while he was National Security

Adviser and Secretary of State. The request was denied for

the same reasons given to the MAP requesters.

Kissinger, 445 U.S. at 143-44 (emphasis added). 

There is no assertion by the agency before us that it has

ceded the relevant records to the Director. Indeed, if it is

ultimately determined that there are agency records in the

requested data, it seems unlikely that the agency could legally

cede the records under the Federal Records Act and the Records

Disposal Act. However, we need not on the present record

determine whether there are agency records among the data

sought, nor the legality of ceding such records. It is sufficient

to conclude, as our colleague agrees, that Kissinger does not

control the case before us.

More nearly on point is Burka v. U.S. Department of Health

and Human Services, 87 F.3d 508 (D.C. Cir. 1996). In Burka,

a requestor sought disclosure from the Department of Health and

Human Services of data tapes and questionnaires regarding

smoking habits and attitudes conducted by an agency within the

Department. 87 F.3d at 510-13. As relevant here, we held in

Burka, that the agency must search and disclose records that

were not on its premises but were under its “constructive

control.” Id. at 515. This comes closer to the question before

us.

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More helpful still is Ryan v. Department of Justice, 617

F.2d 781 (D.C. Cir. 1980), in which a requestor sought

documents from the Department of Justice which were within

the exclusive control of the Attorney General. Id. at 786. The

Department asserted that the documents were not within the

agency since they were under the exclusive control of its head. 

In rejecting that argument, we concluded that there is no basis

in the FOIA “to view the Attorney General as distinct from his

department for FOIA purposes.” Id. at 787. In other words, an

agency always acts through its employees and officials. If one

of them possesses what would otherwise be agency records, the

records do not lose their agency character just because the

official who possesses them takes them out the door or because

he is the head of the agency.

This seems to us to be the only resolution that makes sense. 

If the agency head controls what would otherwise be an agency

record, then it is still an agency record and still must be searched

or produced. The agency’s claim before us simply makes little

sense. That argument relies on the proposition that the emails

in question are under the control of a private entity, not the

government. That private entity is Woods Hole Research

Center, apparently the owner of the “whrc.org” domain where

Director Holdren of the OSTP maintains the account

jholdren@whrc.org. While this specific fact is not addressed in

the record, it is not apparent to us that the domain where an

email account is maintained controls the emails therein to the

exclusion of the user, in this case Director Holdren, who

maintains the account. When one receives an email from John

Doe at, for example, gmail.com, and replies thereto, the replier

would be likely to think that message is going to John Doe, not

gmail.com. Even so here.

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Further, appellee’s argument is inconsistent with the

purpose of FOIA. The Supreme Court has described the

function of FOIA as serving “the citizens’ right to be informed

about what their government is up to.” U.S. Dep’t of Justice v.

Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the Press, 489 U.S. 749, 773

(1989) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). If a

department head can deprive the citizens of their right to know

what his department is up to by the simple expedient of

maintaining his departmental emails on an account in another

domain, that purpose is hardly served. It would make as much

sense to say that the department head could deprive requestors

of hard-copy documents by leaving them in a file at his

daughter’s house and then claiming that they are under her

control.

If by some means Woods Hole Research Center has

lawfully acquired exclusive possession and control of agency

records that were formerly in the possession of John Holdren,

the government has not demonstrated this. We therefore reverse

the district court’s grant of dismissal in favor of the appellee,

and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this

opinion.

We make clear that we are not ordering the specific

disclosure of any document. It may be that OSTP has valid

exemption claims, or even that no document found among the

jholdren@whrc.org email falls within the definition of “agency

records.” However, those questions are for litigation in the

district court in the first instance.

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CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, we reverse the judgment of

dismissal entered by the district court and remand this case for

further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

So ordered.

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SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment: 

I agree with my colleagues that the judgment of dismissal 

entered by the district court should be reversed and the case 

remanded for further proceedings. The district court 

concluded that the agency cannot be considered to have 

“withheld” any emails in Holdren’s private email account

because that account lies outside the agency’s possession or 

control. The court relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in 

Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 

445 U.S. 136 (1980). Kissinger held that an agency did not 

“withhold” certain records that had been taken from the 

agency’s premises by the agency head, because, at the time 

the FOIA requests were filed, the records lay beyond the 

agency’s possession or control.

This case resembles Kissinger in certain respects in that 

both cases concern documents held by a current agency 

official in a location outside the agency’s ordinary domain. 

But while Kissinger held that the FOIA requests in that case 

could not proceed, I, like my colleagues, do not read

Kissinger to require a dismissal of the FOIA request in this 

case, at least at this point in the proceedings. I write 

separately to set out my understanding of the reasons 

Kissinger does not control, and because I approach the issue 

here in a somewhat different fashion than do my colleagues. 

In assessing whether OSTP can be considered to have 

“withheld” emails located in Holdren’s private email account, 

we begin with an important—and as-yet untested—

assumption: that the email account, although a nongovernmental account, contains “agency records” within the 

meaning of FOIA. 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B). The district 

court did not address whether Holdren’s private account 

contains agency records. See 82 F.3d 228, 232 n.4 (D.D.C. 

2015). The court instead assumed that Holdren possesses 

agency records in his private account, but held that, 

regardless, the agency is not withholding those records. In 

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Kissinger, the Supreme Court likewise assumed that the 

requested documents qualified as “agency records,” see 445 

U.S. at 147, but concluded that the State Department had not 

“withheld” those records.

Kissinger arose in a posture resembling this case in 

another notable respect: there, as here, the (assumed) agency 

records were being held by a current agency official. The 

FOIA requests in Kissinger “were filed while Kissinger was 

Secretary of State.” 445 U.S. at 142. Neither Kissinger nor 

this case therefore involves records held by someone having 

no present affiliation with the agency at the time of the FOIA 

request (which, according to Kissinger, is generally the 

relevant time for assessing whether an agency “withholds” 

records, see id. at 155 n.9). And the Kissinger Court treated 

the Secretary as holding the requested records at the time of 

the FOIA requests even though, by then, he had donated the 

documents to the Library of Congress. Because Secretary 

Kissinger continued to “retain[] unrestricted access to the 

collection,” id. at 141, the Court considered him (along with 

the “Library of Congress as his donee”) to be “holding the 

documents.” Id. at 155. 

Both here and in Kissinger, then, at the time of the FOIA 

requests, a current agency official held (assumed) agency 

records in a location outside the agency’s ordinary domain. 

The question we confront is, in those circumstances, when is 

the agency itself appropriately considered to hold the records 

for purposes of its disclosure obligations under FOIA? 

One possible answer would be that, because an agency 

acts only through individuals, an agency holds documents 

whenever an official holds the documents. Kissinger, 

however, forecloses that understanding. There, even though 

the Court considered Secretary Kissinger to be “holding the 

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documents,” the Court held that the “State Department cannot 

be said to have had possession or control of the documents at 

the time the requests were received.” Id. The Court thus 

drew a divide between an agency and its official, at least in 

circumstances in which the agency—as opposed to its 

official—lacks “possession or control” over requested 

documents, a “prerequisite to FOIA disclosure duties.” Id. at 

152.

But does Kissinger mean that, any time an agency official 

possesses an agency record outside the agency’s physical (or, 

in the case of email, virtual) domain, the agency itself lacks 

the requisite possession or control to trigger FOIA disclosure 

obligations? I do not think so. As a general matter, it seems 

appropriate to start from a premise that an agency possesses 

and controls its own records. That premise may yield if files 

have been lost or deleted, or if they are held by a person 

unaffiliated with the agency at the time of the request. But 

when a current official holds agency records, we ordinarily 

would expect the agency to control the documents for 

purposes of responding to a FOIA request. 

Consider, for instance, a circumstance in which an 

official takes the sole available copy of an agency record

home one evening to review and inadvertently leaves it there

the next day. If a FOIA request were received while the 

document happened to remain in the official’s residence, the 

agency presumably could not simply bury its head in the sand 

and disclaim any obligation to disclose the document on the 

rationale that the official possesses it in a location beyond the 

agency’s control. Rather, we assume the official would 

voluntarily retrieve the document to facilitate its inclusion in 

the agency’s FOIA disclosure.

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Kissinger differed from that sort of situation because, 

there, the Secretary not only was “holding the documents . . . 

at the time the requests were received,” but he was “holding 

the documents under a claim of right.” Id. at 155 (emphasis 

added). Secretary Kissinger had obtained an opinion from the 

State Department’s Legal Adviser that the records in question 

were his personal papers. He then removed the records from 

his office and deeded them to the Library of Congress. In 

addition, he later refused the Government Archivist’s request 

for a return of the papers. See id. at 144, 155. Those facts, 

the Court concluded, made “it apparent” that Secretary 

Kissinger held the documents “under a claim of right”—i.e., 

an assertion of possession and control over the documents 

inconsistent with the assumption of agency control. Id. at 

155. “Under these circumstances,” the Court held, “the State 

Department cannot be said to have had possession or control 

of the documents.” Id.

The holding in Kissinger presumably would also apply in 

a situation in which an official wrongfully removes

documents from an agency, stores them in his house, and 

refuses to return them on the grounds that they are his 

personal papers. See ante at 9. The agency might choose to 

take disciplinary action against the official or pursue an 

administrative remedy under the Federal Records Act, 44 

U.S.C. § 2901, and Records Disposal Act, 44 U.S.C. § 3312. 

But the agency’s failure to search those documents would not 

constitute a “withholding” under FOIA, because the agency 

could not be said to retain control over the documents while 

the official holds them in his house under a claim of right.

In this case, there is no comparable indication (at least at 

this stage) that Holdren holds any agency records in his 

private email account under a claim of right. To be sure, he 

retains possession over the contents of the account. But there 

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is no indication he has asserted control over agency records in 

the account in a manner inconsistent with agency control. As 

far as we know, Holdren has not refused an agency request for 

access to the account, transferred custody over records in the 

account to a third party, or otherwise taken action affirming

that its contents belong solely to him in his personal capacity, 

to the exclusion of agency control. It’s true that he forwarded

a number of messages from his private account to his 

government account, in accordance with a previous agency

rule calling for employees to transfer any work-related 

messages from private email accounts to official accounts. 

(In fact, the agency produced over 110 pages of such records 

from Holdren’s government account in response to the FOIA 

request. See J.A. 112, 151-52.) But that action by Holdren 

did not connote a claim of right over any undisclosed agency 

records that may remain in his private account. As a result, I 

see no basis for concluding that Holdren holds any agency 

records in his private email account under a claim of right, 

such that the agency would lack the requisite control over the 

records for a withholding.

On remand, the agency is free to argue that the requested 

documents are not “agency records” or that they fall within 

certain exemptions. See ante at 9. But the agency should also 

be free to present additional facts that would make it apparent 

that Holdren is holding the emails in his private account under 

a claim of right. I would conclude here only that a current

official’s mere possession of assumed agency records in a 

(physical or virtual) location beyond the agency’s ordinary 

domain, in and of itself, does not mean that the agency lacks

the control necessary for a withholding.

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