Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-00-05150/USCOURTS-caDC-00-05150-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 6, 2000 Decided October 13, 2000

No. 00-5150

Mohamed Al Fayed,

Appellant

v.

Central Intelligence Agency,

Appellee

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 99ms00043)

David E. Kendall argued the cause for appellant. With

him on the briefs was Paul C. Rauser.

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

Justice, argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief

were David W. Ogden, Acting Assistant Attorney General,

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Mark B. Stern, Attorney, and Wilma A. Lewis, U.S. Attorney.

Before: Williams, Sentelle and Rogers, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Williams.

Williams, Circuit Judge: Appellant Al Fayed is the father

of Dodi Fayed, who was killed in an automobile crash in Paris

together with Princess Diana and the car's driver, Henri

Paul. French juges d'instruction investigating the deaths

declined to pursue criminal charges, but Al Fayed has exercised his right under French law to appeal that decision; he

hopes also to exercise his right to present new evidence in the

appeal. During the initial French proceeding, he filed an ex

parte application in the district court here under 28 U.S.C.

s 1782, seeking the issuance of a subpoena to the Central

Intelligence Agency for documents relating to the crash. (Al

Fayed also sought a subpoena of the Defense Intelligence

Agency, but he and that agency have resolved their differences.) Section 1782 provides for discovery in the federal

courts at the behest of foreign and international tribunals and

persons interested in proceedings before such tribunals.

The district court granted the application and issued the

subpoena. Al Fayed moved to compel compliance and the

CIA moved to quash. The district court denied Al Fayed's

motion and granted the CIA's. Interpreting the use of

"person" in s 1782 (as used to define those subject to discovery, not those seeking discovery) to exclude the sovereign, it

held that it lacked jurisdiction to issue the subpoena. In re:

Al Fayed, 91 F. Supp. 2d 137, 140-41 (D.D.C. 2000). Al

Fayed appealed. Because he has not shown any affirmative

reason to overcome the presumption that "person" does not

include the government, we affirm.

* * *

Section 1782 provides a mechanism for international or

foreign tribunals, or persons interested in proceedings before

such tribunals, to enlist the federal courts to acquire testimony, documents, or other items:

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(a) The district court of the district in which a person

resides or is found may order him to give his testimony

or statement or to produce a document or other thing

for use in a proceeding in a foreign or international

tribunal, including criminal investigations conducted before formal accusation. The order may be made pursuant to a letter rogatory issued, or request made, by a

foreign or international tribunal or upon the application

of any interested person and may direct that the testimony or statement be given, or the document or other

thing be produced, before a person appointed by the

court.... To the extent that the order does not prescribe otherwise, the testimony or statement shall be

taken, and the document or other thing produced, in

accordance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

A person may not be compelled to give his testimony

or statement or to produce a document or other thing in

violation of any legally applicable privilege.

(b) This chapter does not preclude a person within the

United States from voluntarily giving his testimony or

statement, or producing a document or other thing, for

use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal

before any person and in any manner acceptable to him.

28 U.S.C. s 1782 (emphasis added). No court has yet resolved whether the "person[s]" subject to subpoena in s 1782

include the federal government. Compare In re Al Fayed,

210 F.3d 421, 422-23 (4th Cir. 2000) (even assuming s 1782

covered the government, the district court properly exercised

its discretion to deny Al Fayed's application for a subpoena of

the National Security Agency); In re Kevork, 788 F.2d 566,

568 (9th Cir. 1986) (affirming issuance of subpoena to three

FBI agents under s 1782 at behest of Ontario Supreme

Court, but issue of statute's coverage of government was not

raised).

Plainly s 1782 neither excludes nor includes the sovereign

explicitly. The Dictionary Act, whose definitions govern the

meaning of acts of Congress "unless the context indicates

otherwise," says that the word "person" includes "corporaUSCA Case #00-5150 Document #549868 Filed: 10/13/2000 Page 3 of 8
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tions, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies,

and joint stock companies, as well as individuals." 1 U.S.C.

s 1. The Supreme Court has construed prior similar language to exclude the United States, United States v. United

Mine Workers of America, 330 U.S. 258, 275 (1947),1 and to

find that "person" excludes states, Will v. Michigan Dep't of

State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 69-70 & nn. 8-9 (1989), but does

include municipalities, Monell v. New York City Dep't of

Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 688-89 (1978) (construing "person" to include municipalities in statute enacted when Dictionary Act said that the word encompassed "bodies politic and

corporate").

More generally, the Court has repeatedly held that the

word "person" in a statute does not include a sovereign

government absent affirmative evidence of such an inclusory

intent. It applied the principle just this year in Vermont

Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel. Stevens,

120 S. Ct. 1858 (2000), when it decided that a state or state

agency was not a person within the meaning of the False

Claims Act's provision exposing to liability "[a]ny person"

presenting a false claim to employees or officials of the

United States government. Id. at 1866. The Court invoked

its "longstanding interpretative presumption that 'person'

does not include the sovereign." Id. Although it acknowledged that "[t]he presumption is, of course, not a 'hard and

fast rule of exclusion,' " it said that the principle "may be

disregarded only upon some affirmative showing of statutory

intent to the contrary." Id. at 1867. See also International

Primate Protection League v. Administrators of Tulane

Educ. Fund, 500 U.S. 72, 82-83 (1991) (noting that statutes

employing the word "person" are typically interpreted to

exclude the sovereign and holding that the federal government is not a "person" under statute providing removal

authority); Will v. Michigan Dep't of State Police, 491 U.S. at

__________

1 The version of the Dictionary Act in effect in 1932 when

Congress passed the Norris-LaGuardia Act (construed in United

Mine Workers) said that "the word 'person' may extend and be

applied to partnerships and corporations." 1 U.S.C. s 1 (1926).

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64; United States v. Cooper Corp., 312 U.S. 600, 604 (1941);

cf. Galvan v. Federal Prison Indus., Inc., 199 F.3d 461, 468

(D.C. Cir. 1999) (holding that use of the word "person" in the

False Claims Act does not constitute waiver of the federal

government's sovereign immunity).

Al Fayed suggests that the principle is inapplicable here

because the case poses no risk of monetary relief against the

sovereign--only the issuance of a subpoena; he notes that the

Court has sometimes urged concepts of sovereign immunity

in support of the principle. See, e.g., Will v. Michigan Dep't

of State Police, 491 U.S. at 64. But his own brief undermines

the theory, acknowledging that sovereign immunity principles

come into play when parties seek judicial action to compel

compliance with a subpoena. See, e.g., COMSAT Corp. v.

National Science Foundation, 190 F.3d 269, 277 (4th Cir.

1999). Because of concerns over judicial interference with

executive discretion, the sovereign immunity doctrine played

an active (if hotly disputed) role in suits seeking nonmonetary relief, see, e.g., Larson v. Domestic & Foreign

Commerce Corp., 337 U.S. 682, 695-96, 703-04 (1949); Land

v. Dollar, 330 U.S. 731, 738-39 (1947), until Congress waived

it for all non-monetary claims in the 1976 amendment of 5

U.S.C. s 702. Act of Oct. 21, 1976, Pub. L. No. 94-574, 90

Stat. 2721. That waiver occurred long after the original

enactment of what is now s 1782, and well after its last major

amendment in 1964.2 Act of Oct. 3, 1964, Pub. L. No. 88-619,

s 9(a), 78 Stat. 995, 997. Whatever the ultimate application

of sovereign immunity, it seems naive to say that any sovereign immunity basis for the interpretive presumption has

vanished merely because a waiver may ultimately be applicable. As the district court here observed (in a different

context), the proposition that the federal government has

__________

2 1996 saw a minor addition. To provide assistance to the

International Tribunals for Rwanda and (former) Yugoslavia, Congress added the phrase "including criminal investigations conducted

before formal accusation" after "proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal" in the first sentence. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-106, Div. A, Tit.

XIII, Subtit. E, s 1342 (b), 110 Stat. 186, 486 (1996).

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waived sovereign immunity from a federal-court subpoena by

virtue of 5 U.S.C. s 702 must rest on the "premise that a

federal-court subpoena implicates sovereign immunity." In

re: Al Fayed, 91 F. Supp. 2d at 139.

In any event, the Supreme Court applies the constructional

principle against finding "person" to include a sovereign even

in the absence of sovereign immunity or comity concerns. It

did so, for example, in Breard v. Greene, 523 U.S. 371, 378

(1998), holding that Paraguay was not a "person" entitled to

sue under 42 U.S.C. s 1983, and in United States v. Cooper

Corp., 312 U.S. at 604-05, holding that the United States was

not a "person" entitled to bring treble damage actions under

s 7 of the Sherman Act. But compare Georgia v. Evans, 316

U.S. 159, 161-62 (1942) (holding that states were "person[s]"

entitled to sue for treble damages under s 7 of the Sherman

Act because they, unlike the federal government, had no

other mechanisms to enforce the Act's provisions).

The Court has identified a range of sources for grounds to

overcome the presumption: "[O]ur conventional reading of

'person' may therefore be disregarded if '[t]he purpose, the

subject matter, the context, the legislative history, [or] the

executive interpretation of the statute ... indicate an intent,

by the use of the term, to bring state or nation within the

scope of the law.' " International Primate, 500 U.S. at 83

(internal citation omitted). In this case none of these sources

indicates an intent to override the presumption.

Al Fayed's strongest shot at countervailing the canon is

Rule 45 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, governing

the issuance and enforcement of subpoenas. He notes that

s 1782 expressly directs application of the Federal Rules, and

argues that the word "person" as it appears in Rule 45

includes the federal government. But in fact the meaning of

"person" in Rule 45 is not so simple. Where the government

is a party to a suit it is, unsurprisingly, subject to the rules.

See United States v. Proctor & Gamble Co., 356 U.S. 677, 681

(1958). But as to discovery against the government when it

is not a party, the courts are in some disarray. The Ninth

Circuit has ruled broadly that the federal discovery rules

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apply to the government even as a non-party, Exxon Shipping Co. v. United States Dep't of Interior, 34 F.3d 774, 780

(9th Cir. 1994), but at least two circuits, the Second and

Fourth, have taken a more restrictive approach. Rejecting

Exxon and viewing 5 U.S.C. s 702 as the only applicable

waiver of sovereign immunity, they have applied the Administrative Procedure Act, with the result that review of an

agency's response to a subpoena proceeds as an ordinary

APA case, with all the standard deference principles. United

States Environmental Protection Agency v. General Electric

Co., 197 F.3d 592, 598 (2d Cir. 1999); COMSAT Corp. v.

National Science Foundation, 190 F.3d 269, 277-78 (4th Cir.

1999). See also Moore v. Armour Pharmaceutical Co., 927

F.2d 1194, 1197-98 (11th Cir. 1991). Cf. Houston Business

Journal, Inc. v. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, 86

F.3d 1208, 1212 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (assuming application of

waiver under 5 U.S.C. s 702); Northrop Corp. v. McDonnell

Douglas Corp., 751 F.2d 395, 398 n.2 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (where

no party raised possible sovereign immunity issue, the court

noted prior cases that "assumed the nonapplicability of sovereign immunity" to a subpoena directed against the government as a non-party and declined to analyze the assumption).

Thus s 1782's cross-reference to the Federal Rules can hardly be said to send a contextual signal that might overcome the

standard presumption.

Even if the government as a non-party were subject to

discovery like any other party under the rules, we note that

this alone could not create jurisdiction if s 1782 did not. The

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure "shall not be construed to

extend or limit the jurisdiction of the United States district

courts." Fed. R. Civ. P. 82. The district court must have

jurisdiction under s 1782 before the discovery rules become

operative. See United States Catholic Conference v. Abortion Rights Mobilization, Inc., 487 U.S. 72, 76 (1988) ("[T]he

subpoena power of a court cannot be more extensive than its

jurisdiction."); Dery v. Wyer, 265 F.2d 804, 808 (2d Cir. 1959)

("A rule of procedure, of course, however convenient and

salutary it may be, is without efficacy to extend the jurisdiction of a court.").

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Al Fayed also seeks support in the general purpose of

s 1782 and its legislative history. One can certainly formulate the goals of the statute at a high level of generality, and

on occasion Congress has done so for s 1782 (as it does for

many statutes). A Senate Judiciary Committee report supporting the 1964 amendment, for example, expressed the goal

of "providing equitable and efficacious procedures for the

benefit of tribunals and litigants involved in litigation with

international aspects," and thereby "invit[ing] foreign countries similarly to adjust their procedures." S. Rep. No. 1580,

at 2 (1964), reprinted in 1964 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3782, 3783. See

also Lancaster Factoring Co. Ltd. v. Mangone, 90 F.3d 38, 41

(2d Cir. 1996) (relying on the report); Malev Hungarian

Airlines v. United Technologies Int'l Inc., 964 F.2d 97, 100

(2d Cir. 1992) (same). But the breadth of the goals as a

general matter does little or nothing to answer the question

before us--whether Congress intended, in pursuit of those

goals, to impose responsibilities and burdens on federal agencies. Nor do we find any help in Al Fayed's point that the

successive amendments, since the statute's origin in 1855,

have given it "increasingly broad applicability." See Lancaster Factoring Co. Ltd. v. Mangone, 90 F.3d at 41. In fact the

1863 Act restricted the initial 1855 statute,3 but regardless of

the direction of the successive changes, none addressed the

issue here.

As Al Fayed has provided no affirmative evidence to disturb the presumption that "person" excludes the sovereign,

we affirm the district court's order quashing the subpoena.

So ordered.

__________

3 The 1855 statute authorized federal courts, upon receipt of

letters rogatory from foreign courts, to compel witnesses to testify.

Act of March 2, 1855, ch. 140, s 2, 10 Stat. 630. In 1863, the initial

statute was restricted to allow federal courts to obtain testimony

only in "suit[s] for the recovery of money or property ... in any

foreign country with which the United States are at peace, and in

which the government of such foreign country shall be a party or

shall have an interest." Act of March 3, 1863, ch. 95, s 1, 12 Stat.

769.

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