Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-00-05134/USCOURTS-caDC-00-05134-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Executive Office of the President
Petitioner

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued May 18, 2000 Decided May 26, 2000

No. 00-5134

In re: Executive Office of the President,

Petitioner

On Petition for Writ of Mandamus

William B. Schultz, Deputy Assistant Attorney General,

United States Department of Justice, argued the cause for

petitioner. With him on the petition were David W. Ogden,

Acting Assistant Attorney General, Mark B. Stern, Michael

S. Raab, and Colette G. Matzzie, Attorneys.

Larry E. Klayman argued the cause and filed the response

for respondents.

Before: Edwards, Chief Judge, Ginsburg and Tatel,

Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed Per Curiam:

Per Curiam: This matter involves an Emergency Petition

for Writ of Mandamus, filed by the Department of Justice on

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behalf of the Executive Office of the President ("EOP"),

challenging a discovery order by the District Court.

The underlying law suit is a civil action brought by plaintiffs who claim inter alia that the FBI improperly gave the

White House FBI files of former political appointees, and that

the White House improperly maintained those files, in violation of the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. s 552a (1994). The Government moved to dismiss Count II of the complaint for lack of

jurisdiction, claiming that the President's personal staff and

White House units whose sole function is to advise and assist

the President (hereafter referred to as "White House Office")

are not "agencies" subject to the Privacy Act. The Government argued that the definition of "agency" in the Privacy

Act is taken directly from the Freedom of Information Act

("FOIA"), 5 U.S.C. s 552(f), and the courts consistently have

interpreted FOIA to exclude the White House Office. See

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

U.S. 136, 156 (1980). The District Court, however, denied the

motion to dismiss, finding that "the concerns of FOIA and the

Privacy Act are quite different." Alexander v. FBI, 971

F. Supp. 603, 606 (D.D.C. 1997). The District Court held, in

particular, that the reasons for exempting the White House

Office from the definition of "agency" under FOIA did not

apply to the Privacy Act. Accordingly, it held that the White

House Office constituted an "agency" for the purposes of the

Privacy Act. See id. at 606-07.

Recognizing that its holding presented a judgment "as to

which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion,"

the District Court certified the question for appeal under 28

U.S.C. s 1292(b) (1994). See Alexander v. FBI, No. 96-2123

(D.D.C. Aug. 12, 1997) (order certifying interlocutory appeal).

This court denied the certified petition for permission to

appeal from the interlocutory order, holding that the question

raised did not "present a controlling issue of law, the resolution of which [would] materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation." See Alexander v. FBI, No. 97-8059

(D.C. Cir. Oct. 10, 1997) (order denying permission to appeal

interlocutory order).

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Following this court's refusal to consider the certified

question, plaintiffs pursued discovery in support of their

Privacy Act claim. At issue here is plaintiffs' interrogatory

asking for "[a]ny and all knowledge" of Bruce Lindsey,

Deputy Counsel to the President, concerning "the release or

use of any documents between Kathleen Willey and President

Clinton or his aides, or documents relating to telephone calls

or visits between Willey and the President or his aides."

Emergency Petition for Writ of Mandamus ("Petition") at 8

("Willey-file Interrogatory"). Although Ms. Willey is neither

a named plaintiff in this case nor a putative class member, the

District Court nonetheless ruled that the discovery was permissible, because "if the [Willey] file was maintained in a way

that implicated the Privacy Act, then its misuse could prove

to be circumstantial evidence of file misuse aimed at the

plaintiffs in the case at bar." Alexander v. FBI, 186 F.R.D.

113, 115 (D.D.C. 1998).

EOP nonetheless persisted in objecting to the Willey-file

Interrogatory, asserting attorney-client, work-product, and

deliberative-process privileges. In a Memorandum and Order issued on March 29, 2000, the District Court rejected

each of the asserted privileges. See Alexander v. FBI, No.

96-2123, Mem. Op. at 10 (D.D.C. Mar. 29, 2000). The District

Court rejected the attorney-client privilege on the grounds

that "EOP [had] not met its burden of establishing that the

information withheld pertained to a confidential communication from the client." Id. With regard to the work-product

privilege, the District Court stated that it was "questionable

that the work-product privilege would apply to the discussions at issue," because "there is no prospect of 'litigation'."

Id. at 21-22 n.13. And, finally, the District Court stated that

"it appears that the deliberative process privilege would not

be applicable in this case," because the "privilege does not

apply when a cause of action is directed at the government's

intent...." Id. at 23 n.14 (citations and internal quotation

marks omitted).

In dicta, the District Court also rejected the asserted

privileges on the ground that, "when the President and the

EOP released the [Willey] letters, they were fully aware of

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[the District Court's] ruling that the Privacy Act was applicable, and that disclosure of the letters was therefore prohibited

by the Privacy Act." Id. at 18. "Thus," according to the

District Court, because "the President had the requisite

intent for committing a criminal violation of the Privacy Act,"

id. at 19, and "the release of the Willey letters was a criminal

violation of the Privacy Act," id. at 20, the "crime-fraud"

exception vitiated the asserted privileges.

EOP now seeks to vacate the District Court's March 29,

2000 Order through this Emergency Writ of Mandamus.

"The remedy of mandamus is a drastic one, to be invoked

only in extraordinary situations." Kerr v. United States

District Court, 426 U.S. 394, 402 (1976). In determining

whether we are faced with an "extraordinary situation" requiring mandamus relief, we consider:

(1) whether the party seeking the writ has any other

adequate means, such as a direct appeal, to attain

the desired relief;

(2) whether that party will be harmed in a way not

correctable on appeal;

(3) whether the district court clearly erred or abused its

discretion;

(4) whether the district court's order is an oft-repeated

error; and

(5) whether the district court's order raises important

and novel problems or issues of law.

National Assoc. of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Inc. v. United

States Dep't of Justice, 182 F.3d 981, 987 (D.C. Cir. 1999).

Almost the entire thrust of EOP's petition is that the

District Court erred in concluding that the White House is

subject to the Privacy Act. And EOP's principal claim for

relief is a request that this court "issue a writ of mandamus

directing dismissal of the Privacy Act claim." Petition at 20.

This court has already ruled that the matter regarding the

applicability of the Privacy Act raises a question that properly

may be addressed on an appeal of the final judgment in the

underlying case. We declined to address the issue as a

certified question under 28 U.S.C. s 1292(b), and we see no

basis now to address the issue pursuant to a petition for

mandamus. Even assuming, arguendo, that the District

Court's holding on the scope of the Privacy Act is clear error,

mandamus relief is not warranted in this case. This is so

because, on the record at hand, there has been no showing of

harm of the sort required to justify the drastic remedy of

mandamus. See National Assoc. of Criminal Defense Lawyers, 182 F.3d at 987 ("In no event ... could clear error alone

support the issuance of a writ of mandamus in this case

because, as we have seen, any error--even a clear one--could

be corrected on appeal without irreparable harm either to the

Department or to the administration of the FOIA in this

circuit.").

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EOP first claims that it will suffer serious harm if required

to answer the Willey-file Interrogatory, because this will

result in the release of information it regards as privileged.

There are occasions when mandamus relief may be appropriate to challenge a District Court's discovery order. See, e.g.,

In re Papandreou, 139 F.3d 247 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (granting

mandamus relief of district court order that diplomats submit

to depositions); In re: Sealed Case, 151 F.3d 1059 (D.C. Cir.

1998) (granting mandamus where district court's discovery

order would have revealed secret grand jury information).

As we recognized in Papandreou, "disclosure [of highly privileged material] followed by appeal after final judgment is

obviously not adequate in such cases--the cat is out of the

bag." 139 F.3d at 251. In the normal course, however,

mandamus is not available to review a discovery order. This

is especially true when, as here, granting such relief "would

permit an application for review of a discovery order to serve

in effect as a vehicle for interlocutory review of the underlying merits of the law suit." Pacific Union Conference of

Seventh-Day Adventists v. Marshall, 434 U.S. 1305, 1309

(1977). See also Byrd v. Reno, 180 F.3d 298, 303 (D.C. Cir.

1999) (denying mandamus of discovery order where attorney

claimed work-product privilege).

EOP has not met its burden of showing the need for

mandamus relief to overturn the District Court's denial of the

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asserted privileges, because it has offered us no argument

that it is even entitled to the privileges. In fact, EOP

presents no substantive argument whatsoever in opposition to

the trial court's holdings that the attorney-client privilege,

work-product privilege, and deliberative-process privilege find

no support in this record. Rather, EOP simply says that,

"although we have not in this Petition separately briefed the

applicability of the work product doctrine and the attorneyclient and deliberative process privileges, we continue to

disagree with the district court's conclusions on these questions." Petition at 15 n.7. This is far short of what is

necessary to support a petition for mandamus relief. Absent

a viable claim that some important privilege will be infringed

if discovery is allowed to proceed, this court has no jurisdiction to review the interlocutory order on this ground.

EOP's second asserted ground for mandamus relief is that

"[t]he district court's order of March 29 now makes the EOP

legally accountable for failing to treat [the District Court's]

1997 interlocutory order as if it was legally binding in the

ongoing operations of the EOP." Petition at 10. In this

regard, EOP claims that mandamus relief is warranted, because the District Court "committed significant legal error in

concluding that the President committed a criminal violation

by acting inconsistently with [the District Court's] nonbinding statement of the law." Petition at 11. In short, EOP

contends that the President's interactions with his closest

advisors will be irreparably damaged in the future, because

the District Court has sought to coerce the White House, on

threat of criminal sanction, into following a view of the

Privacy Act to which it does not subscribe. EOP's contentions on this score are meritless, because they are based on

faulty premises regarding the weight of the District Court's

opinion.

We view the District Court's discussion of the crime-fraud

exception as unnecessary to his decision. Indeed, it was

inappropriate for the District Court gratuitously to invoke

sweeping pronouncements on alleged criminal activity that

extended well beyond what was necessary to decide the

matters at hand. In the March 29, 2000 Order, the District

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Court found that EOP had failed to establish that the

attorney-client privilege applied; the court also stated that,

even without considering the crime-fraud exception, the workproduct and deliberative-process privileges were not applicable in this case. There was nothing more to be said. "Too

frequently our dicta cause future strains rather than avoid

them," Quaker Action Group v. Morton, 516 F.2d 717, 745

(D.C. Cir. 1975) (MacKinnon, J., concurring in part and

dissenting in part), and this case may be an example of just

that. Nonetheless, the disputed dicta here are of no moment.

The District Court's observations on alleged criminal activity

are entirely superfluous--they "are not binding on a subsequent court, whether as a matter of stare decisis or as a

matter of law of the case," Wilder v. Apfel, 153 F.3d 799, 803

(7th Cir. 1998)--and, thus, they provide no basis for mandamus relief.

In short, we do not take seriously EOP's argument that the

President and the members of the White House Office are

now disabled from functioning because of an implicit threat

underlying the District Court's Order. As EOP should know,

the District Court has no free-wheeling authority to run the

affairs of the White House with respect to matters that are

not related to the instant case. District Court decisions do

not establish the law of the circuit, City Stores Co. v. Lerner

Shops, 410 F.2d 1010, 1014 (D.C. Cir. 1969), nor, indeed, do

they even establish "the law of the district," Threadgill v.

Armstrong World Indus., Inc., 928 F.2d 1366, 1371 (3rd Cir.

1991). The members of the White House Office are under no

real threat of criminal prosecution by reason of the District

Court's Order, because the court has no control over the

decision whether to pursue such criminal actions. In activities unrelated to the instant case, the White House, as it has

done for many years on the advice and counsel of the

Department of Justice, remains free to adhere to the position

that the Privacy Act does not cover members of the White

House Office. The District Court's view on this matter will

be subject to review on appeal following final judgment in this

case.

In sum, we find no basis upon which to exercise mandamus

jurisdiction. The petition is accordingly dismissed.

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