Source: https://openjurist.org/492/us/136
Timestamp: 2017-10-17 15:16:37
Document Index: 477359441

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 552', '§ 552', '§ 552', '§ 1914', '§ 552', '§ 552', '§ 3301', '§ 552', '§ 552', '§ 552', '§ 552', '§ 552', '§ 1914', '§ 552', '§ 552', '§ 3301', '§ 2201', '§ 552', '§ 552', '§ 552']

492 US 136 United States Department of Justice v. Tax Analysts | OpenJurist
492 U.S. 136 - United States Department of Justice v. Tax Analysts
492 US 136 United States Department of Justice v. Tax Analysts
109 S.Ct. 2841
106 L.Ed.2d 112
The Tax Division of the Department of Justice (Department) represents the Federal Government in nearly all civil tax cases in the district courts, the courts of appeals, and the Claims Court, and receives copies of all opinions and orders issued by those courts in such cases. Respondent publishes a weekly magazine containing summaries of recent federal court tax decisions, supplemented by full texts of those decisions in microfiche form. Respondent also publishes a daily electronic data base that includes summaries and full texts of recent federal-court tax decisions. After the Department denied its request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to make available all district court tax opinions and final orders received by the Tax Division in a certain period, respondent appealed administratively. While the appeal was pending, respondent agreed to withdraw its request in return for access to the Tax Division's weekly log of federal-court tax cases. Eventually, however, respondent became frustrated with the process of obtaining copies of decisions from district court clerks and initiated a series of new FOIA requests for copies of all district court opinions and final orders identified in the Tax Division's weekly logs. The Department denied these requests and, on administrative appeal, sustained the denial. Respondent then filed suit in District Court seeking to compel the Department to provide it with access to district court decisions received by the Tax Division. The District Court granted the Department's motion to dismiss the complaint, holding that 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B), which confers jurisdiction in district courts when "agency records" have been "improperly withheld," had not been satisfied. The court reasoned that the decisions sought had not been "improperly withheld" because they were already available from their primary source, the district courts. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the decisions were "improperly withheld" and were "agency records" for purposes of the FOIA.
(c) The district court decisions were "improperly" withheld despite their public availability at the original source, since they did not fall within any of the enumerated exemptions to the FOIA's disclosure requirements. While under § 552(a)(3) an agency need not make available materials that have already been disclosed under §§ 552(a)(1) and (a)(2), these latter subsections are limited to situations in which the requested materials have been previously published or made available by the agency itself. That disclosure of district court decisions may be partially governed by other statutes, in particular 28 U.S.C. § 1914, and by rules of the Judicial Conference of the United States, does not entitle the Department to claim that the requested district court decisions were not "improperly" withheld, since Congress has enacted no provision authorizing an agency to refuse to disclose materials whose disclosure is mandated by another statute. Moreover, the decision in GTE Sylvania, Inc. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 445 U.S. 375, 100 S.Ct. 1194, 63 L.Ed.2d 467, that agency records enjoined from disclosure by a district court were not "improperly" withheld even tho gh they did not fall within any of the enumerated exemptions, was not meant to be an invitation to courts in every case to engage in balancing, based on public availability and other factors, to determine whether there has been an unjustified denial of information. The FOIA invests courts with neither the authority nor the tools to make such determinations. Pp. 150-155.
William A. Dobrovir, Washington, D.C., for respondent.
In late July 1979, Tax Analysts filed a FOIA request in which it asked the Department to make available all district court tax opinions and final orders received by the Tax Division earlier that month.1 The Department denied the request on the ground that these decisions were not Tax Division records. Tax Analysts then appealed this denial administratively. While the appeal was pending, Tax Analysts agreed to withdraw its request in return for access to the Tax Division's weekly log of tax cases decided by the f deral courts. These logs list the name and date of a case, the docket number, the names of counsel, the nature of the case, and its disposition.
The District Court granted the Department's motion to dismiss the complaint, holding that 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B), which confers jurisdiction in the district courts when "agency records" have been "improperly withheld,"2 had not been satisfied. 643 F.Supp. 740, 742 (1986). The court reasoned that the district court decisions at issue had not been "improperly withheld" because they "already are available from their primary sources, the District Courts," id., at 743, and thus were "on the public record." Id., at 744. The court did not address whether the district court decisions are "agency records." Id., at 742.
The FOIA confers jurisdiction on the district courts "to enjoin the agency from withholding agency records and to order the production of any agency records improperly withheld." § 552(a)(4)(B). Under this provision, "federal jurisdiction is dependent on a showing that an agency has (1) 'improperly' (2) 'withheld' (3) 'agency records.' " Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of Press, 445 U.S. 136, 150, 100 S.Ct. 960, 968, 63 L.Ed.2d 267 (1980). Unless each of these criteria is met, a district court lacks jurisdiction to devise remedies to force an agency to comply with the FOIA's disclosure requirements.3
We consider first whether the district court decisions at issue are "agency records," a term elaborated upon both in Kissinger and in Forsham. Kissinger involved three separate FOIA requests for written summaries of telephone conversations in which Henry Kissinger had participated when he served as Assistant to he President for National Security Affairs from 1969 to 1975, and as Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977. Only one of these requests—for summaries of specific conversations that Kissinger had had during his tenure as National Security Adviser—raised the "agency records" issue. At the time of this request, these summaries were stored in Kissinger's office at the State Department in his personal files. We first concluded that the summaries were not "agency records" at the time they were made because the FOIA does not include the Office of the President in its definition of "agency." 445 U.S., at 156, 100 S.Ct., at 971. We further held that these documents did not acquire the status of "agency records" when they were removed from the White House and transported to Kissinger's office at the State Department, a FOIA-covered agency:
Two requirements emerge from Kissinger and Forsham, each of which must be satisfied for requested materials to qualify as "agency records." First, an agency must "either create or obtain" the requested materials "as a prerequisite to its becoming an 'agency record' within the meaning of the FOIA." Id., at 182, 100 S.Ct., at 985. In performing their official duties, agencies routinely avail themselves of studies, trade journal reports, and other materials produced outside the agencies both by private and governmental organizations. See Chrysler Corp. v. Brown, 441 U.S. 281, 292, 99 S.Ct. 1705, 1712, 60 L.Ed.2d 208 (1979). To restrict the term "agency records" to materials generated internally would frustrate Congress' desire to put within public reach the information available to an agency in its decision-making processes. See id., at 290, n. 10, 99 S.Ct., at 1712, n. 10. As we noted in Forsham, "The legislative history of the FOIA abounds with . . . references to records acquired by an agency." 445 U.S., at 184, 100 S.Ct., at 986 (emphasis added).4
Second, the agency must be in control of the requested materials at the time the FOIA request is made. By control we mean that the materials have come into the agency's possession in the legitimate conduct of its official duties. This requirement accords with Kissinger's teaching that the term "agency records" is not so broad as to include personal materials in an employee's possession, even though the materials may be physically located at the agency. See 445 U.S., at 157, 100 S.Ct., at 972. This requirement is suggested by Forsham as well, 445 U.S., at 183, 100 S.Ct., at 985, where we looked to the definition of agency records in the Records Disposal Act, 44 U.S.C. § 3301. Under that definition, agency records include "all books, papers, maps, photographs, machine readable materials, or other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by an agency of the United States Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business . . . ." Ibid. (emphasis added).5 Furthermore, the requirement that the materials be in the agency's control at the time the request is made accords with our statement in Forsham that the FOIA does not cover "information in the abstract." 445 U.S., at 185, 100 S.Ct., at 987.6
Applying these requirements here, we conclude that the requested district court decisions constitute "agency records." First, it is undisputed that the Department has obtained these documents from the district courts. This is not a case like Forsham, where the materials never in fact had been received by the agency. The Department contends that a district court is not an "agency" under the FOIA, but this truism is beside the point. The relevant issue is whether an agency covered by the FOIA has "create[d] or obtaine[d]" the materials sought, Forsham, 445 U.S., at 182, 100 S.Ct., at 985, not whether the organization from which the documents originated is itself covered by the FOIA.7
The Department also urges us to limit "agency records," at least where materials originating outside the agency are concerned, "to those documents 'prepared substantially to be relied upon in agency decisionmaking.' " Brief for Petitioner 21, quoting Berry v. Department of Justice, 733 F.2d 1343, 1349 (CA9 1984). This limitation disposes of Tax Analysts' requests, the Department argues, because district court judges do not write their decisions primarily with an eye toward agency decisionmaking. This argument, however, makes the determination of "agency records" turn on the intent of the creator of a document relied upon by an agency. Such a mens rea requirement is nowhere to be found in the Act.8 Moreover, discerning the intent of the drafters of a document may often prove an elusive endeavor, particularly if the document was created years earlier or by a large number of people for whom it is difficult to divine a common intent.
We turn next to the term "withheld," which we discussed in Kissinger. Two of the requests in that case—for summaries of all the telephone conversations in which Kissinger had engaged while serving as National Security Adviser and as Secretary of State implicated that term. These summaries were initially stored in Kissinger's personal files at the State Department. Near the end of his tenure as Secretary of State, Kissinger transferred the summaries first to a private residence and then to the Library of Congress. Significantly, the two requests for these summaries were made only after the summaries had been physically delivered to the Library. We found this fact dispositive, concluding that Congress did not believe that an agency "withholds a document which has been removed from the possession of the agency prior to the filing of the FOIA request. In such a case, the agency has neither the custody nor control necessary to enable it to withhold." 445 U.S., at 150-151, 100 S.Ct., at 968-969.9 We accordingly refused to order the State Department to institute a retrieval action against the Library. As we e plained, such a course "would have us read the 'hold' out of 'withhold. . . . A refusal to resort to legal remedies to obtain possession is simply not conduct subsumed by the verb withhold.' " Id., at 151, 100 S.Ct., at 969.10
The Department's counterargument is that, because the district court decisions sought by Tax Analysts are publicly available as soon as they are issued and thus may be inspected and copied by the public at any time, the Department cannot be said to have "withheld" them. The Department notes that the weekly logs it provides to Tax Analysts contain sufficient information to direct Tax Analysts to the "original source of the requested documents." Brief for Petitioner 23. It is not clear from the Department's brief whether this argument is based on the term "withheld" or the term "improperly."11 But, to the extent the Department relies on the former term, its argument is without merit. Congress used the word "withheld" only "in its usual sense." Kissinger, 445 U.S., at 151, 100 S.Ct., at 969. When the Department refused to grant Tax Analysts' requests for the district court decisions in its files, it undoubtedly "withheld" these decisions in any reasonable sense of that term. Nothing in the history or purposes of the FOIA counsels contorting this word beyond its usual meaning. We therefore reject the Department's argument that an agency has not "withheld" a document under its control when, in denying an otherwise valid request, it directs the requester to a place outside of the agency where the document may be publicly available.
In enacting the FOIA, Congress intended "to curb this apparently unbridled discretion" by "clos[ing] the 'loopholes which allow agencies to deny legitimate information to the public.' " Ibid. (citation omitted); see also EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. 73, 79, 93 S.Ct. 827, 832, 35 L.Ed.2d 119 (1973). Toward this end, Congress formulated a system of clearly defined exemptions to the FOIA's otherwise mandatory disclosure requirements. An agency must disclose agency records to any person under § 552(a), "unless they may be withheld pursuant to one of the nine enumerated exemptions listed in § 552(b)." Department of Justice v. Julian, 486 U.S. 1, 8, 108 S.Ct. 1606, 1611, 100 L.Ed.2d 1 (1988). Consistent with the Act's goal of broad disclosure, these exemptions have been consistently given a narrow compass. See, e.g., ibid.; FBI v. Abramson, 456 U.S. 615, 630, 102 S.Ct. 2054, 2063, 72 L.Ed.2d 376 (1982). More important for present purposes, the exemptions are "explicitly exclusive." FAA Administrator v. Robertson, 422 U.S. 255, 262, 95 S.Ct. 2140, 2146, 45 L.Ed.2d 164 (1975); see also Rose, 425 U.S., at 361, 96 S.Ct., at 1599; Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U.S., at 221, 98 S.Ct., at 2316; Mink, supra, 410 U.S., at 79, 93 S.Ct., at 832. As Justice O'CONNOR has explained, Congress sought "to insulate its product from judicial tampering and to preserve the emphasis on disclosure by admonishing that the 'availability of records to the public' is not limited, 'except as specifically stated.' " Abramson, supra, 456 U.S., at 642, 102 S.Ct., at 2070 (dissenting opinion) (emphasis in original), quoting § 552(c) (now codified at § 552(d)); see also 456 U.S., at 637, n. 5, 102 S.Ct., at 2067, n. 5; H.R.Rep. No. 1497, supra, at 1. It follows from the exclusive nature of the § 552(b) exemption scheme that agency records which do not fall within one of the exemptions are "improperly" withheld.12
The Department's argument proves too much. The disclosure requirements set out in subsections (a)(1) and (a)(2) are carefully limited to situations in which the requested materials have been previously published or made available by the agency itself. It is one thing to say that an agency need not disclose materials that it has previously released; it is quite another to say that an agency need not disclose materials that some other person or group may have previously released. Congress undoubtedly was aware of the redundancies that might exist when requested materials have been previously made available. It chose to deal with that problem by crafting only narrow categories of materials which need not be, in effect, disclosed twice by the agency. If Congress had wished to codify an exemption for all publicly available materials, it knew perfectly well how to do so. It is not for us to add or detract from Congress' comprehensive scheme, which already "balances, and protects all interests" implicated by Executive Branch disclosure. Mink, supra, 410 U.S., at 80, 93 S.Ct., at 832 quoting S.Rep. No. 813, 89th Congress, 2nd Sess., 3 (1965).13
It is not surprising, moreover, that Congress declined to exempt all publicly available materials from the FOIA's disclosure requirements. In the first place, such an exemption would engender intractable fights over precisely what constitutes public availability, unless the term were defined with precision. In some sense, nearly all of the information that comes within an agency's control can be characterized as publicly available. Although the form in which this material comes to an agency—i.e., a report or testimony—may not be generally available, the information included in that report or testimony may very well be. Even if there were some agreement over what constitutes publicly available materials, Congress surely did not envision agencies satisfying their disclosure obligations under the FOIA simply by handing requesters a map and sending them on scavenger expeditions throughout the Nation. Without some express indication in the Act's text or legislative history that C ngress intended such a result, we decline to adopt this reading of the statute.
The Department's next argument rests on the fact that the disclosure of district court decisions is partially governed by other statutes, in particular 28 U.S.C. § 1914, and by rules set by the Judicial Conference of the United States. The FOIA does not compel disclosure of district court decisions, the Department contends, because these other provisions are "more precisely drawn to govern the provision of court records to the general public." Brief for Petitioner 30. We disagree. As with the Department's first argument, this theory requires us to read into the FOIA a disclosure exemption that Congress did not itself provide. This we decline to do. That Congress knew that other statutes created overlapping disclosure requirements is evident from § 552(b)(3), which authorizes an agency to refuse a FOIA request when the materials sought are expressly exempted from disclosure by another statute. If Congress had intended to enact the converse proposition—that an agency may refuse to provide disclosure of materials whose disclosure is mandated by another statute—it was free to do so. Congress, however, did not take such a step.14
Although the Department is correct in asserting that GTE Sylvania represents a departure from the FOIA's self-contained exemption scheme, this departure was a slight one at best, and was necessary in order to serve a critical goal independent of the FOIA—the enforcement of a court order. As we emphasized, GTE Sylvania arose in "a distinctly different context" than the typical FOIA case, id., at 386, 100 S.Ct., at 1201, where the agency decides for itself whether to comply with a request for agency records. In such a case, the agency cannot contend that it has "no discretion . . . to exercise." Ibid.
For the reasons stated, the Department improperly withheld agency records when it refused Tax Analysts' requests for copies of the district court tax decisions in its files.15 Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
The burden is on the agency to demonstrate, not the requester to disprove, that the materials sought are not "agency records" or have not been "improperly" "withheld." See S.Rep. No. 813, 89th Cong., 2nd Sess., 8 (1965) ("Placing the burden of proof upon the agency puts the task of justifying the withholding on the only party able to explain it"); H.R.Rep. No. 1497, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 9 (1966), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1966, pp. 2418, 2426 (same); cf. Federal Open Market Committee v. Merrill, 443 U.S. 340, 352, 99 S.Ct. 2800, 2808, 61 L.Ed.2d 587 (1979).
Title 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(4), which exempts from disclosure trade secrets and commercial or financial information "obtained from a person," provides further support for the principle that the term "agency records" includes materials received by an agency. See Forsham, 445 U.S., at 184-185, 100 S.Ct., at 986-987; see also id., at 183-184, 100 S.Ct., at 985-986 (noting that the definition of "records" in the Records isposal Act, 44 U.S.C. § 3301, and in the Presidential Records Act of 1978, 44 U.S.C. § 2201(2), encompassed materials "received" by an agency).
In GTE Sylvania, Inc. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 445 U.S. 375, 385, 100 S.Ct. 1194, 1201, 63 L.Ed.2d 467 (1980), we noted that Congress intended the FOIA to prevent agencies from refusing to disclose, among other things, agency telephone directories and the names of agency employees. We are confident, however, that requests for documents of this type will be relatively infrequent. Common sense suggests that a person seeking such documents or materials housed in an agency library typically will find it easier to repair to the Library of Congress, or to the nearest public library, rather than to invoke the FOIA's disclosure mechanisms. Cf. Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of Press, 489 U.S. 749, 764, 109 S.Ct. 1468, 1477, 103 L.Ed.2d 774 (1989) ("[I]f the [requested materials] were 'freely available,' there would be no reason to invoke the FOIA to obtain access"). To the extent such requests are made, the fact that the FOIA allows agencies to recoup the costs of processing requests from the requester may discourage recourse to the FOIA where materials are readily available elsewhere. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A).
Because requested materials ordinarily will be in the agency's possession at the time the FOIA request is made, disputes over control should be infrequent. In some circumstances, however, requested materials might be on loan to another agency, "purposefully routed . . . out of agency possession in order to circumvent [an impending] FOIA request," or "wrongfully removed by an individual after a request is filed." Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of Press, 445 U.S. 136, 155, n. 9, 100 S.Ct. 960, 971, n. 9, 63 L.Ed.2d 267 (1980). We leave consideration of these issues to another day.
This point is implicit in Department o Justice v. Julian, 486 U.S. 1, 7, and n. 6, 108 S.Ct. 1606, 1610, and n. 6, 100 L.Ed.2d 1 (1988), where it was uncontroverted that presentence reports, which had been prepared under district court auspices and turned over to the Department and the Parole Commission, constituted "agency records."
Although a control inquiry for "withheld" replicates part of the test for "agency records," the FOIA's structure and legislative history make clear that agency control over requested materials is a "prerequisite to triggering any duties under the FOIA." Kissinger, 445 U.S., at 151, 100 S.Ct., at 969 (emphasis added); see also id., at 152-153, 100 S.Ct., at 969-970; Forsham v. Harris, 445 U.S. 169, 185, 100 S.Ct. 977, 986, 63 L.Ed.2d 293 (1980).
Kissinger's focus on the agency's present control of a requested document was based in part on the Act's purposes and structure. With respect to the former, we noted that because Congress had not intended to "obligate agencies to create or retain documents," an agency should not be "required to retrieve documents which have escaped its possession, but which it has not endeavored to recover." 445 U.S., at 152, 100 S.Ct., at 969 (citations omitted). As for the Act's structure, we noted that, among other provisions, § 552(a)(6)(B) gives agencies a 10-day extension of the normal 10-day period for responding to FOIA requests if there is a need to search and collect the requested materials from facilities separate from the office processing the request. The brevity of this extension period indicates that Congress did not expect agencies to resort to lawsuits to retrieve documents within that period. See id., at 153, 100 S.Ct., at 970.
The Court of Appeals believed that the Department was arguing "that it need not affirmatively make [the district court decisions] available to Tax Analysts because the documents have not been withheld to begin with." 269 U.S.App.D.C. 315, 319-320, 845 F.2d 1060, 1064-1065 (1988) (emphasis in ori inal).
Even when an agency does not deny a FOIA request outright, the requesting party may still be able to claim "improper" withholding by alleging that the agency has responded in an inadequate manner. Cf. § 552(a)(6)(C); Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of Press, 445 U.S., at 166, 100 S.Ct., at 976 (STEVENS, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). No such claim is made in this case. Indeed, Tax Analysts does not dispute the Court of Appeals' conclusion that the Department could satisfy its duty of disclosure simply by making the relevant district court opinions available for copying in the public reference facility that it maintains. See 269 U.S.App.D.C., at 321-322, and n. 15, 845 F.2d, at 1066-1067, and n. 15.
On appeal, Tax Analysts limited its requests to the approximately 25% of the district court decisions that it was unable to procure fr m court clerks or other sources. See 269 U.S.App.D.C., at 318, n. 5, 845 F.2d, at 1063, n. 5; Brief for Respondent 8, n. 7. The Court of Appeals' remand thus was limited to these decisions, as is our affirmance. However, the reasoning we have employed applies equally to all of the district court decisions initially sought by Tax Analysts.