Opinion ID: 333210
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: 'Instructions to Staff'

Text: 25 We turn briefly to the question of whether these documents are made disclosable by subsection (a)(2)(C), under which agencies must release and index 'administrative staff manuals and instructions to staff that affect a member of the public.' 23 On a first reading of the statute it might be quite tempting to describe the Birmingham attorneys' handwritten records of Phillips' directions as 'instructions to staff.' Moreover, in Stokes v. Brennan, 476 F.2d 699 (C.A.5, 1973), this court adopted a broad reading of subsection (a)(2)(C). We noted from the legislative history that Congress had added the adjective 'administrative' in order to limit the scope of this provision, but that only information which, if known to the public, would significantly impede the enforcement process was thereby excluded. 26 However, we need not decide whether the materials in controversy fall within this subsection. As previously suggested and as further discussed below, these reports are the kind of memoranda covered by Exemption 5; and, in any collision between the two provisions, subsection (a)(2)(C) must yield, because the Act 'does not apply' to exempted material. § 552(b); Sears, 421 U.S. at 154 n. 21, 95 S.Ct. at 1518, 44 L.Ed.2d at 49 n. 21. Thus we can narrow our consideration to the question of whether 'instructions to staff' automatically fall outside of Exemption 5. Such an interpretation might be suggested by the following language from Sears: 'We should be reluctant . . . to construe Exemption 5 to apply to the documents described in 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(2); and with respect at least to 'final opinions' . . . we hold that Exemption 5 can never apply.' 27 Several factors prompt us to hold that, unlike the situation with final opinions, a document's status as 'instructions to staff' under subsection (a) (2)(C) does not determine whether the document is within Exemption 5. First, despite its expressed 'reluctance,' the Supreme Court implicitly held in Sears that there is some overlap between the two statutory provisions: for it found that the work-product privilege brought certain memoranda into the exemption 'whether or not' those memoranda were also 'instructions to staff.' Second, the conclusion we reach is consistent with our analysis in Stokes, where we treated subsections (a)(2)(C) and (b)(5) as raising entirely different technical issues. Third, a different conclusion would undercut the fifth exemption. 'Predecisional' processes will quite regularly involve instructions to staff in the literal sense--if only an 'instruction' to prepare a formal expression of the agency's views--and yet disclosure of those instructions would obviously tend to impinge on the deliberative process. 28