Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05212/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05212-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Inc.
Appellee
United States Department of Agriculture
Appellant

Document Text:

<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

1 A detailed background of this case is set forth in our prior opinion, Chesapeake Bay

Foundation, Inc. v. United States Dep't of Agriculture, 11 F.3d 211 (D.C. Cir. 1993), cert.

denied, 115 S. Ct. 315 (1994), and in two district court opinions, Chesapeake Bay Foundation,

Inc. v. United States Dep't of Agriculture, 785 F. Supp. 1030 (D.D.C. 1992), and Chesapeake

Bay Foundation, Inc. v. United States Dep't of Agriculture, 917 F. Supp. 64 (D.D.C. 1996). 

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 10, 1997 Decided March 14, 1997

No. 96-5212

CHESAPEAKE BAY FOUNDATION, INC.,

APPELLEE

v.

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(89cv01943)

Charles F. Flynn, Assistant United States Attorney, argued the cause for appellant, with whom Eric

H. Holder, Jr., United States Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant United States Attorney,

were on the briefs. John O. Birch, Assistant United States Attorney, entered an appearance.

Nancy Crisman argued the cause for appellee, with whom Anne Spielberg was on the brief. Diane

Curran entered an appearance.

Before: SILBERMAN, WILLIAMS, and HENDERSON, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SILBERMAN.

SILBERMAN, Circuit Judge: Appellant United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)

challengesforthe second time an award to theChesapeakeBayFoundation of attorneys'feesincurred

in pursuing a FOIA request. We reverse.

I.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation whose principal goal is to

pursue projects designed to restore and maintain the biological integrity of the Chesapeake Bay.1In

1988, after determining that survey data concerning pesticide use by Maryland state agencies were

USCA Case #96-5212 Document #259052 Filed: 03/14/1997 Page 1 of 5
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

unavailable to the public, the Foundation sought release of the data from USDA. The Foundation

initially made an informal request for the data, but USDA responded that 7 U.S.C. § 2276(a)(2)

(1994), which provides that USDA may not disclose certain information furnished to it "unless such

information has been transformed into a statistical or aggregate form that does not allow the

identification of the person who supplied particular information," prohibited USDA from disclosing

information that identified the state agenciesthat had supplied it. USDA did offer, however, to seek

waiversfrom the state agenciesif the Foundation would pay the postage to mail the waiver requests.

The Foundation then filed a formal request for the data under the Freedom of Information Act

(FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552 et seq. (1994), which USDA denied, again citing 7 U.S.C. § 2276(a)(1),

while reiterating its offer to seek waivers if the Foundation would pay for postage.

Believing that it had a legal right to the information, and apparently fearing that a voluntary

waiver procedure would result in an incomplete data set, the Foundation refused USDA's offer to

seek waivers and instead filed suit to compelrelease of the data. After the parties filed cross-motions

for summary judgmentbut without deciding whether the Foundation was legally entitled to the

informationthe district court entered an order directing the Attorney General of Maryland and the

individualstate agencies to file any objections to the release of the survey data. All of the Maryland

agencies eventually waived their confidentiality interests, and the Foundation received substantially

all of the information it had requested.

The Foundation then filed a request for attorneys'fees and costs as a "substantially prevailing"

party under FOIA. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(E). The district court determined that the Foundation

was "eligible" for fees and costs because the Foundation's success at obtaining the information was

a direct result of the lawsuit. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Inc. v. United States Dep't of

Agriculture, 785 F. Supp. 1030, 1032 (D.D.C. 1992). Purporting to apply the four-factor test of

Weisberg v. United States, 745 F.2d 1476, 1498 (D.C. Cir. 1984)under which the district court

is directed to consider the public benefit of the release of the information, the commercial benefit to

the plaintiff, the nature of the plaintiff's interest in the information, and the reasonableness of the

agency's basisfor withholding the informationthe district court concluded that the Foundation was

USCA Case #96-5212 Document #259052 Filed: 03/14/1997 Page 2 of 5
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

"entitled" to fees and costs(over $44,000) because "the entire public benefits when it hasinformation

regarding the use or nonuse of potentially harmful chemicals." 785 F. Supp. at 1033.

We affirmed the district court's determination that the Foundation was "eligible" for fees and

costs, but remanded on the entitlement question because the district court had "completely failed to

consider" the fourth Weisberg factorwhether USDA had a reasonable basis for withholding the

information. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Inc. v. United States Dep't of Agriculture, 11 F.3d 211,

216 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (Chesapeake Bay Foundation I), cert. denied, 115 S. Ct. 315 (1994). We

directed the district court first to consider the applicability of 7 U.S.C. § 2276(a)(1), for no fees

would be recoverable if USDA was legally prohibited from disclosing the data. Id. Even if USDA

were not legally prohibited fromdisclosing the surveydata, inweighing the Weisberg factors, we said

"the issue of the reasonableness of the Government's position [was] not open to question" for it was

"clear that USDA's basis for withholding the survey data was reasonable." Id. at 217 (emphasis

added). We also "reject[ed] the finding of the trial judge that Government counsel and USDA

officials were guilty of obdurate conduct." Id.

On remand, the district court determined that 7 U.S.C. § 2276(a)(1) did not prohibit USDA

fromdisclosing the survey data because it was alreadyin "statistical and aggregate form" and because

the data revealed only the names of counties or agencies, not "persons." Chesapeake Bay

Foundation, Inc. v. United States Dep't of Agriculture, 917 F. Supp. 64, 66 (D.D.C. 1996).

Balancing the Weisberg factors, the district court again found the Foundation entitled to attorneys

fees and costs (now more than $56,000). In the district court's view, the Foundation's "use of the

requested materials clearly redounded to the public benefit," and "[a]lthough the Court of Appeals

found that the government had a reasonable basisto withhold the documents," the governmentshould

have "sought the waivers in the first instance," making the court's intervention "unnecessary." Id.

II.

Reiterating its position in Chesapeake Bay Foundation I, USDA contendsthat it was legally

prohibited by 7 U.S.C. § 2276(a)(2) from disclosing the survey data to the Foundation, and hence

fees and costs cannot be awarded. In USDA's view, state agencies are "persons" under the statute,

USCA Case #96-5212 Document #259052 Filed: 03/14/1997 Page 3 of 5
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

and USDA had not "transformed" the survey data into a "statistical or aggregate form that [did] not

allow the identification of the person [agency] who supplied particular information." 7 U.S.C. §

2276(a)(2). The Foundation counters that "person" does not include state agencies because 1 U.S.C.

§ 1 defines "person" for all acts of Congress (unless the context indicates otherwise) to include

"corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as

well as individuals"but not state agencies. And, in the Foundation's view, the Maryland agencies

had themselves "transformed" raw data provided by individual users into "statistical or aggregate

data."

We need not decide this difficult question, however, because even if disclosure were not

legally prohibited by 7 U.S.C. § 2276(a)(2), the district court abused its discretion in finding that the

Foundation was entitled to attorneys'fees and costs. Implicit in the district court's award was its view

that the "public benefit" of the Foundation's request for the data lay in the use of the survey data to

determine whether the use of pesticides in Maryland created a public safety hazard. 917 F. Supp. at

66; see also 785 F. Supp. at 1033. We believe the court, in this respect, misunderstood the nature

ofthe public benefit inquiry. Although we have chosen different language to characterize this inquiry,

compare, e.g., Weisberg, 745 F.2d at 1498 (court must consider "the benefit of the release to the

public"), with Cuneo v. Rumsfeld, 553 F.2d 1360, 1365 (D.C. Cir. 1977) (court must consider "the

benefit to the public, if any, derived from the case"), our recent decisions make clear that the court

must consider "the public benefit derived from the case," Tax Analysts v. Dep't of Justice, 965 F.2d

1092, 1093-94 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (emphasis added); Chesapeake Bay Foundation I, 11 F.3d at 216,

i.e., the litigation.

As we noted in Chesapeake Bay Foundation I, however, "the solution adopted by the

[district] court essentially mirrored USDA's pre-litigation suggestion that waivers be sought....

USDA was required to do nothing more than what it had proposed to do before the lawsuit was

filed." 11 F.3d at 213. (Given this appellate conclusion, we cannot understand why the district court

nevertheless insisted, on remand, that USDA "was unwilling to seek waivers from the various state

agencies until this Court stepped in and insisted that the request for waivers be made." 917 F. Supp.

USCA Case #96-5212 Document #259052 Filed: 03/14/1997 Page 4 of 5
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

at 66.) The only difference between USDA's pre-litigation offer and the district court's solution was

that the Foundation did not have to pay for postage under the latterwhich is hardly a significant

public benefit. Nor is the establishment of a legal right to information a public benefit for the purpose

of awarding attorneys' fees. See Cotton v. Heyman, 63 F.3d 1115, 1120 (D.C. Cir. 1995)

(precedential value of a holding that the Smithsonian is an agency subject to FOIA not a public

benefit).

* * *

Where, as here, there was no public benefit to the litigation, an award of attorneys' fees and

costs is unwarranted. We therefore reverse.

USCA Case #96-5212 Document #259052 Filed: 03/14/1997 Page 5 of 5