Source: https://openjurist.org/546/f2d/509
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 06:10:48+00:00

Document:
William J. USERY, Secretary of Labor, Defendant-Appellee.
Michael H. Lipson, Burlington, Vt. (John A. Dooley, III, and Vermont Legal Aid, Inc., Burlington, Vt., of counsel), for plaintiff-appellant.
Eloise E. Davies, Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C. (Rex E. Lee, Asst. Atty. Gen., Washington, D. C., George W. F. Cook, U. S. Atty., Rutland, Vt., Leonard Schaitman, Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., of counsel), for defendant-appellee.
Before LUMBARD, FRIENDLY and MULLIGAN, Circuit Judges.
This appeal arises under the provision of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), § 552(a)(4)(E),1 authorizing a court to award reasonable attorney fees and other litigation costs in any case where the complainant has substantially prevailed. Although we do not agree with so much of the decision of the district court as indicates that an order directing production is a necessary condition for an award of attorney fees and costs under the FOIA, we affirm the denial of an award on the facts of this case.
All records, reports or documents prepared by Department of Labor "monitors" in connection with on-site evaluations of all Vermont apple growers' efforts to recruit domestic labor to pick the 1975 apple harvest (prepared at any time during the period May-July 1975).
This request was in furtherance of VLIAC's efforts to persuade the Department against certification of foreign labor to pick the Vermont apple harvest. VLIAC apparently first learned of the existence of the documents requested in August 1975 and was seeking them in connection with its efforts to prevent the use of foreign labor for the 1975 autumn harvest. This apple harvest in Vermont, we are told, is generally concluded by the third or fourth week of September.
The Boston office of the Labor Department denied VLIAC's request by a letter of September 8 within the 10-day response period of the FOIA, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a) (6)(A)(i). It cited the "intra-agency memoranda" exemption, see 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(5); 29 C.F.R. § 70.25. By letter of September 16, VLIAC appealed this denial to the Solicitor of Labor in Washington, D.C., disputing the applicability of the exemption on the basis of the content of the material requested. On October 2, the Solicitor's office wrote to VLIAC acknowledging receipt of the appeal on September 24 and advising that a reply would be sent by October 22; the letter also referred to the necessity of obtaining the records from the regional office prior to disposition of the appeal. The Solicitor's office requested the records by telephone from the regional office on October 3; apparently something was forwarded immediately to the Washington office but was lost in transit.
RE YOUR FOIA APPEAL. FILE NOT RECEIVED IN THIS OFFICE BECAUSE NOT LOCATED. UNDERSTAND FILE IN THE MAIL TO US TODAY. PLEASE ADVISE YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBER SO THAT WE MAY CONTACT YOU TO DISCUSS.
The materials sent on November 6 to the Washington office were received on November 10; however, they related to the period September-October 1975, and thus were not those requested by VLIAC. Apparently because of the responsible official's absence from her office for conferences, including a training program to insure proper compliance with FOIA and the recently enacted Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, and because of her other official duties, this error was not discovered until the fourth week of November at which time it was thought that the requested material did not exist.
The correct records from the regional office were received in Washington on December 11 following a second search for the material ordered by the Solicitor's office. On December 12, an informal determination was made to grant VLIAC's appeal with the exception of certain minor deletions deemed necessary to prevent invasion of personal privacy, see 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6); 29 C.F.R. § 70.26. On December 16, VLIAC mailed its motion for summary judgment to the district court and this was filed the following day together with the Government's answer denying VLIAC's entitlement to relief. On or about December 16, after VLIAC had mailed its summary judgment motion, VLIAC was informed by telephone of the Department's favorable decision of its appeal; that decision later was embodied in a letter of December 22 from the Solicitor of Labor accompanying the documents which were received by VLIAC on December 30. VLIAC then withdrew its motion for summary judgment and on January 13, 1976 filed a motion seeking an award of attorney fees and costs pursuant to § 552(a)(4)(E). On February 26 the Government filed a motion asking that the suit be dismissed as moot and opposing VLIAC's motion for fees. A hearing was held on February 27.
In the first instance the information was withheld on what may have been an erroneous interpretation of the recent statute. On appeal the administrative decision was delayed until the correct requested material could be retrieved from the Regional office. While the delay generated the present litigation, as soon as the defendant discovered the plaintiff was lawfully entitled to a part of the records, the appropriate material was supplied. Certain material was withheld apparently with some legal justification. In any event, there is nothing this court has done to grant the plaintiff the relief prayed for in the complaint. There has been no judicial action to establish the plaintiff as the prevailing party. The plaintiff's motion for an award of attorney's fees and costs will be denied and the action dismissed.
The legislative history of § 552(a)(4)(E) is unusually complete, and we begin by setting it out.
Court costs and reasonable attorneys' fees should be awarded, in the discretion of the court, to the complainant if the court issues an injunction or order against the Government agency on a finding that the information sought was improperly withheld from the complainant.
The court may assess against the United States reasonable attorney fees and other litigation costs reasonably incurred in any case under this section in which the United States or an officer or agency thereof, as litigant, has not prevailed.
Section (1)(e) . . . allows the assessment of attorney fees and costs against the agency on behalf of a litigant. The assessment of fees and costs is at the option of the court.
The court may assess against the United States reasonable attorney fees and other litigation costs reasonably incurred in any case under this section in which the complainant has substantially prevailed. In exercising its discretion under this paragraph, the court shall consider the benefit to the public, if any, deriving from the case, the commercial benefit to the complainant and the nature of his interest in the records sought, and whether the government's withholding of the records sought had a reasonable basis in law.
The conference substitute follows the Senate amendment, except that the statutory criteria for court award of attorney fees and litigation costs were eliminated. By eliminating these criteria, the conferees do not intend to make the award of attorney fees automatic or to preclude the courts, in exercising their discretion as to awarding such fees, to take into consideration such criteria.
The point most strongly urged by appellant and opposed in brief by the Government is that the district court erred in concluding that the rendition of a plaintiff's judgment was a necessary condition for the award of attorney fees and costs. While that would have been true under the original proposal made by the House Committee on Government Operations in 1972, we agree that under the bill as enacted a judgment is not an absolute prerequisite to such an award, as indeed the Government seemingly conceded at argument. To take an extreme example, Congress clearly did not mean that where an FOIA suit had gone to trial and developments made it apparent that the judge was about to rule for the plaintiff, the Government could abort any award of attorney fees by an eleventh hour tender of the information requested.
Our agreement with appellant on this score does not mean, however, that a reversal is mandated. Just as Congress did not mean that an award of attorney fees in a FOIA case could never be made in the absence of a judgment for the plaintiff, neither did it mean that a plaintiff was entitled to an award of such fees whenever a suit was brought and the requested information (or the bulk of it) was thereafter furnished. The Conference Report stated, in complete accord with the House and Senate Reports, that "the conferees do not intend to make the award of attorney fees automatic," and that such an award lies in the court's sound discretion. The detailed list of criteria governing a court's discretion which the Senate bill had contained was eliminated not because the conferees disagreed with it but because they regarded it as "too delimiting" and "unnecessary." Leg.Hist. 227. This case illustrates the wisdom of their action.
In order to obtain an award of attorney fees in an FOIA action, a plaintiff must show at minimum that the prosecution of the action could reasonably have been regarded as necessary and that the action had substantial causative effect on the delivery of the information. Neither condition was fulfilled here.
determines that, notwithstanding the applicability or possible applicability of an exemption from disclosure, the requested inspection or copying furthers the public interest and does not impede the discharge of any of the functions of the Labor Department.
The FOIA also contains certain "time release" provisions available to the Government: under § 552(a)(6)(B) the Government in certain enumerated "unusual circumstances" may obtain up to an additional 10 days to respond either initially or with respect to an appeal by notifying the applicant of the reasons for the delay and the expected date of decision; and under § 552(a)(6) (C) the district court is authorized to provide the Government additional time upon a showing of "exceptional circumstances" and "due diligence." In this case, the Government utilized neither of these provisions, although § (i) of the first "the need to search for and collect the requested records from field facilities or other establishments that are separate from the office processing the request" seems to have been right on target.
In such unusual cases, the committee expects that the requestor will accept the good faith assurances of the agency that the information requested will be retrieved and the request itself acted upon in the most expeditious manner possible.
In view of our disposition, appellant's citation to Campbell v. United States Civil Service Comm'n, 539 F.2d 58 (10 Cir. 1976), is unavailing. The district court there partly granted the FOIA complainant's request and enforcement of the order was stayed pending appeal. Following a decision in another circuit holding documents similar to some of those requested not to be exempt, the agency publicized part of the requested material, including all that had been ordered released by the district court. In the appeal, the Tenth Circuit held the remaining documents in dispute exempt but it remanded to the district court for consideration of an increase in the lower court's initial $250 fee award. Nothing suggests, however, that the applicant's resort to the courts was unreasonable and we do not disagree with the implication in Campbell that an FOIA litigant who has won a court order directing production of records over agency assertions of exemptions should not be denied fees simply because the agency discloses the material on the basis of a decision in another circuit during the pendency of the appeal and while the district court order is stayed.

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