Opinion ID: 586821
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Did the District Court Err in Excluding Documents Never Seen by the Corps?

Text: 108 The Towns argue that the test of whether information is part of an administrative record is whether the information was directly or indirectly considered by the permitting agency. They argue that in concluding that all but seven of the fifty seven documents did not belong in the administrative record because these documents were never seen by the Corps, the district court erred because it created a rule that allows administrative agencies to avoid judicial review of their actions by relying on oral communications. Brief of Appellants at 43. 109 The Towns seem to be asserting that every document which reflects an oral communication with a government agency must be included in the administrative record, even if these documents are not in the possession of the agency. The fallacy of this argument is obvious. Were we to accept it, government agencies would be required to collect from all parties who had oral communications with the agency concerning the issue under consideration, all documents reflecting these communications with the agency and include them in the record. There is no support in administrative law for such a requirement and its legality is highly questionable. 110 We have carefully reviewed the remaining fifty documents and conclude that these documents contain no factual or policy information relevant to the issuance of the permit. Indeed, National Wildlife Federation v. Burford, 677 F.Supp. 1445, 1457 (D.Mont.1985)--cited by the Towns in support of this argument--supports the district court's decision to exclude the documents. In National Wildlife, the court concluded that the contents of the personal files and notes of employees of the Department of the Interior were properly not made part of the administrative record. Id. at 1457. Similarly, most of the submissions by EPA and the Justice Department consist of notes of the personnel of these agencies which reflect telephone conversations of no significance. The remaining documents--with a few exceptions discussed below--consist of notes made by various government attorneys during telephone conversations and they reflect the mental impressions and opinions of these attorneys. 111 We therefore hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding these documents. We now review the district court's conclusion that the seven documents seen by the Corps' personnel did not belong in the administrative record. 112 B. Did the District Court Err in Excluding Seven Documents Seen by the Corps But Not Included in the Administrative Record? 113 The district court concluded that seven of the documents were seen by the Corps and warranted separate consideration. Six of the documents are letters from the U.S. Attorney's Office to the Corps of Engineers and the seventh document is an unsigned draft of a letter from Colonel Phillip R. Harris, District Engineer for the New England Division, to Richard D. Fox of the MWRA. 114 The district court concluded that the six letters did not belong in the administrative record because they did not contain factual statements or made policy recommendations and because only two of these letters commented on the merits of the petition. These two letters were written by Assistant U.S. Attorney Henderson and sent to Gary Pasternak, Assistant District Counsel for the Corps, and to Colonel Harris, the District Engineer. In both letters, Assistant U.S. Attorney Henderson expressed his opinion that David Killoy's memorandum of December 24, 1990, could be withheld from public disclosure under the deliberative process privilege of the FOIA. Assistant U.S. Attorney Henderson expressed his view that the Killoy memorandum was a deliberative document and that its analysis was faulty. 115 The district court concluded that it was highly unlikely that the Corps of Engineers would have relied on this statement in deciding the permit question, since the letter provided no legal, factual, or policy reason for this conclusory statement, and the statement was made only to support the U.S. Attorney's position that the memoranda were 'deliberative.'  Alternatively, the district court held that these letters were protected from disclosure under the attorney-client privilege. 116 The district court's action is fully supportable. A person asserting the attorney-client privilege with respect to a document provided by an attorney has the burden of showing four elements: 117 (1) that he was or sought to be a client of [the attorney]; (2) that [the attorney] in connection with the [document] acted as a lawyer; (3) that the [document] relates to facts communicated for the purpose of securing a legal opinion, legal services or assistance in a legal proceeding; and (4) that the privilege has not been waived. 118 United States v. Bay State Ambulance and Hosp. Rental Service, Inc., 874 F.2d 20, 27-28 (1st Cir.1989) (citing United States v. Wilson, 798 F.2d 509, 512 (1st Cir.1986)). 119 At the time these six letters were written--from January to February of 1991--the Towns had brought several suits to attempt to overturn the decision to place the landfill in Walpole. The Towns had (1) filed suit in state court challenging the state environmental review process; (2) filed a motion to intervene in a suit filed by the United States seeking an order from the district court to transfer the Walpole site from the Department of Corrections to the MWRA; and (3) filed suit in the district court challenging EPA's review of the landfill selection under the National Environmental Policy Act. 33 Clearly, the Towns had made every effort to overturn the decision to locate the landfill in Walpole and it was reasonable for the Corps and the U.S. Attorney to anticipate litigation over the Corps permit decision. As the district court found: 120 An attorney-client relationship exists between the Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Attorney in connection with anticipated litigation. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 516-519 (plenary authority of Attorney General and Department of Justice to conduct and direct litigation involving the United States or its agencies); see also 5 U.S.C. § 3106 (heads of executive and military departments to refer litigation to Justice Department). The [six] letters reveal that the U.S. Attorney was acting as a lawyer and was engaged in giving the Corps legal advice with respect to reasonably anticipated litigation (that is, the instant case). All the letters begin with the heading, ATTORNEY-CLIENT COMMUNICATION, PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL, and there is no indication that these communications were disclosed to third parties. 121 Id. 137 F.R.D. at 190. 122 The Corps has met each of the elements required to assert the attorney-client privilege. The Corps was a client of the U.S. Attorney. The letters were from the U.S. Attorney to its client and by the content of the letters, it is clear that they relate to facts communicated for the purpose of securing a legal opinion, legal services or assistance in a legal proceeding. Bay State Ambulance and Hosp. Rental Serv., 874 F.2d at 28. Finally, the Corps has not waived the privilege. 123 Although there may be an unusual and extraordinary circumstance where a document protected by the attorney-client privilege should be made part of the administrative record, this is clearly not the case. 124 C. Did the District Court Err in Excluding as Deliberative a Draft Letter Prepared by the Corps? 125 The district court concluded that an unsigned draft of a letter from Colonel Phillip R. Harris, District Engineer for the New England Division to Richard D. Fox of the MWRA was protected by the deliberative process privilege. 126 The deliberative process privilege protects the internal deliberations of an agency in order to prevent injury to the quality of agency decisions. NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 421 U.S. 132, 151, 95 S.Ct. 1504, 1516, 44 L.Ed.2d 29 (1975). Two requirements must be met before the government may properly withhold a document from disclosure. Nadler v. U.S. Dept. of Justice, 955 F.2d 1479, 1490-91 (11th Cir.1992). First, the document must be prepared prior to a final decision in order to assist an agency decisionmaker in arriving at his decision. Id. at 1491 (citing Renegotiation Bd. v. Grumman Aircraft Eng'g Corp., 421 U.S. 168, 184, 95 S.Ct. 1491, 1500, 44 L.Ed.2d 57 (1975)). Second, the document must be a direct part of the deliberative process in that it makes recommendations or expresses opinions on legal or policy matters. Id. (citing Vaughn v. Rosen, 523 F.2d 1136, 1144 (D.C.Cir.1975)). Furthermore, factual information that may be segregated from the rest of the document is not protected by the privilege. 5 U.S.C. § 552(b); Nadler, 955 F.2d at 1491; Hopkins v. U.S. Dept. of Housing & Urban Dev., 929 F.2d 81, 85 (2d Cir.1991). 127 The document at issue here is an unsigned draft letter from Colonel Harris, dated January 4, 1991, to Richard Fox of the MWRA informing the MWRA that the Corps would not be able to issue a permit for the Walpole landfill by the end of January deadline and setting forth two options to stay on the court mandated schedule for the Boston Harbor cleanup project. The draft letter has no factual information and it reflects a preliminary position by the Corps that was subsequently rejected. Accordingly, the draft letter is clearly protected from disclosure by the deliberative process privilege. 128 D. Did the District Court Err in Not Permitting Supplementation of the Record? 129 The Towns seek to include the 57 documents in the administrative record based on the assertion that the Department of Justice and the EPA secretly and improperly pressured the Corps to issue the permit. The district court examined the documents in camera and concluded the they did not demonstrate bad faith or improper behavior to warrant ordering the supplementation of the administrative record. 130 The basis for our review of the permit decision here is the administrative record. Florida Power & Light Co. v. Lorion, 470 U.S. 729, 743-44, 105 S.Ct. 1598, 1606-07, 84 L.Ed.2d 643 (1985); Camp v. Pitts, 411 U.S. 138, 142, 93 S.Ct. 1241, 1244, 36 L.Ed.2d 106 (1973); Friends of Earth, 800 F.2d at 829. Courts require a strong showing of bad faith or improper behavior before ordering the supplementation of the administrative record. Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe, 401 U.S. 402, 91 S.Ct. 814, 28 L.Ed.2d 136 (1971); Havasupai Tribe v. Robertson, 943 F.2d 32, 34 (9th Cir.1991). 131 Citing D.C. Fed'n of Civic Ass'ns v. Volpe, 459 F.2d 1231, 1249 (D.C.Cir.1971), cert. denied, 405 U.S. 1030, 92 S.Ct. 1290, 31 L.Ed.2d 489 (1972), the Towns asserts that the district court erred in concluding that there was no improper behavior here, particularly given the ex parte high level discussions among executive branch officials. We think that the Towns' exaggerate the reach of Volpe. 132 Volpe does not dilute the requirement of making a strong showing of bad faith or improper behavior before supplementing the record. In Volpe, a divided panel of the District of Columbia Circuit held that the Secretary of Transportation had failed to comply with the statutory requirements and other provisions applicable to federal funded highway projects in approving construction of a bridge across the Potomac. The defects in the Secretary's decision in Volpe were colossal, including his failure to compile an administrative record or to make formal findings and his approval of the bridge project prior to the finalization of the plans for the bridge. 34 The evidence in Volpe also showed that the Chairman of the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia of the House Appropriations Committee publicly pressured the Secretary by threatening to withhold funds for the District's rapid transit system unless the bridge project was approved. Two judges held that the Secretary of Transportation's decision would be invalid if based in whole or in part on political pressure. Id. at 1246. 35 133 Our review of the in camera submission supports the district court's conclusion that there is no evidence here to suggest that political pressure or any kind of unseemly influence, in whole or in part, affected the Corps' permitting process. In this case, the Corps has presented a detailed Record of Decision and it is reasonably supported by the administrative record. It shows that the Corps based its decision on the factors relevant to determining whether the MWRA's permit application complied with the Section 404 Guidelines and whether issuance of the permit would be in the public interest. 134 The Towns claim inter alia that Volpe stands for the proposition that if other litigation [involving the United States] or the Boston Harbor clean-up project were considered by the Corps in issuing the permit, the decision must be vacated and remanded. Although this interpretation of Volpe seems questionable, we need not conclusively determine its soundness since none of the documents submitted for in camera review show any indication of impropriety by the United States or that the position of the United States in other litigation was considered by the Corps in its permitting process. The Towns have not presented any evidence that the fact that the U.S. Attorney's Office represented the Corps and the EPA was a factor considered in the permitting process. The Justice Department has the sole responsibility for representing executive branch agencies in litigation. The Supreme Court has recognized that the main purposes of centralizing litigation responsibility in the Justice Department is to assure that the United States should speak with one voice that reflects not the parochial interests of a particular agency, but the common interests of the Government and therefore of all the people. United States v. Providence Journal Co., 485 U.S. 693, 706, 108 S.Ct. 1502, 1510, 99 L.Ed.2d 785 (1988). 135 Finally, we have examined the in camera submission and conclude that adding these submissions to the record would serve no purpose. The Killoy memoranda explained in sufficient detail the internal Corps opposition to the issuance of the permit. The Towns have not cited precedent--nor have we found any--indicating that a district court should allow supplementation of an administrative record with information which is already properly documented in the administrative record. 136 E. Whether the District Court Judge Erred in Denying the Towns' Motion for His Disqualification? 137 During the proceedings below, the Towns moved pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 455(a) to excuse Judge Mazzone. Section 455(a) provides that a judge shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned. Judge Mazzone denied the Towns' motion for his disqualification finding no basis for it since [t]he record in this case is lengthy, and, as both sides point out, there are occasions when my rulings and orders, or remarks from the bench in connection with a ruling, have evoked disappointment from the litigants. Memorandum Order of May 21, 1991. 138 The issue of disqualification in this Circuit turns on 139 whether the charge of lack of impartiality is grounded on facts that would create a reasonable doubt concerning the judge's impartiality, not in the mind of the judge himself or even necessarily in the mind of the litigant filing the motion under 28 U.S.C. § 455, but rather in the mind of a reasonable man. 140 United States v. Arache, 946 F.2d 129, 140 (1st Cir.1991) (citing United States v. Cowden, 545 F.2d 257, 265 (1st Cir.1976), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 909, 97 S.Ct. 1181, 51 L.Ed.2d 585 (1977)), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 1507, 117 L.Ed.2d 645 (1992). We review Judge Mazzone's denial of the Towns' motion for his recusal under the abuse of discretion standard. United States v. Lopez, 944 F.2d 33, 37 (1st Cir.1991); Camacho v. Autoridad de Telefonos de Puerto Rico, 868 F.2d 482, 490 (1st Cir.1989). 141 Judge Mazzone made several statements in the course of the Boston Harbor litigation which the Towns assert would cause a reasonable person to question his impartiality. The first statement was made on July 2, 1990, when Judge Mazzone denied a request by the United States for an order requiring the MWRA to commence the planning of an alternative landfill since the Massachusetts legislature had decided to postpone voting on the transfer of Walpole site from the Department of Corrections to the MWRA until December 5, 1990. Instead, Judge Mazzone chose to wait until after the December 5, 1990, vote in the Massachusetts legislature. The judge, however, made the following comment: 142 At the same time, I am mindful of the high risk that attends my decision to forego action until December 5, 1990. At stake is the credibility of the Court's schedule and the public's faith in the integrity of the entire project. In the event that necessary legislation has not been approved by that date and that slippage in the schedule results from the paralysis surrounding the siting issue, I will entertain and intend to grant a motion for sanctions designed to ensure immediate resolution of the matter. 143 It is true that Judge Mazzone's comments, viewed in isolation, might require further scrutiny. However, given the context in which these comments were made, we conclude that they at most indicate that Judge Mazzone was irritated at the snail's pace in which the Commonwealth was moving to fully comply with the district court's plan to clean up Boston Harbor. In fact, Judge Mazzone made the statement as a background comment to his denial of a request by the United States for stricter compliance with the court's mandated schedule. In this sense Judge Mazzone's comments--to the effect that the Commonwealth was placed on actual notice that he would not tolerate further unjustified delays--were eminently reasonable. 144 Furthermore, the historical context in which these comments were made is significant. For more than five years, Judge Mazzone has overseen and continues to oversee the project to induce the Commonwealth and its agencies to comply with federal law by cleaning up Boston Harbor. Back in 1985, Judge Mazzone found the Commonwealth and the MWRA liable for violations of a permit issued under the provisions of the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System. 36 These violations continue today. 145 The second statement which the Towns claim amounts to specific behavior which reasonably calls into question Judge Mazzone's impartiality is found in an Order entered after the Massachusetts legislature voted against the transfer of Walpole from the Department to the MWRA. The legislature voted against the transfer on December 6, 1990, and shortly thereafter, the United States filed a motion before Judge Mazzone to compel the transfer of the Walpole site to the MWRA or for sanctions. 146 On February 25, 1991, Judge Mazzone granted the United States' motion by imposing a moratorium on any new sewer connections to MWRA's system. In response to an argument by the Commonwealth to the effect that any action by the district court would be premature, Judge Mazzone stated: 147 First the statement that the schedule is not yet in severe jeopardy is true only if one assumes that the landfill will ultimately be located at the Walpole site. If I must eventually order the Commonwealth to effect the transfer, I can delay doing so for some time, although I do not believe that court action can wait as long as September, 1992. But if the Walpole site, for which much of the requisite studying, planning, and testing has already been completed, is not to be the ultimate site for the landfill, then another site must be selected immediately if there is to be any chance of beginning construction as planned. In fact, given the need to complete state and federal environmental impact reports for any new site, it may already be too late. It is therefore my conclusion that there is now a real and imminent threat to the schedule. 148 While that statement indicates that Judge Mazzone wanted a landfill site to be selected right away, and his concern that only the Walpole site was sufficiently advanced to meet the court's schedule, it does not indicate a preference for Walpole per se so long as some other suitable site was expeditiously chosen. These statements simply show that Judge Mazzone was weighing the factors to take into account in determining an appropriate sanction to bring the Commonwealth into compliance with the scheduling order. Indeed, the statement reveals Judge Mazzone's awareness of the distinct possibility that at the end of the site selection process, Walpole might not be the site for the landfill. 149 The Towns also claim that Judge Mazzone prejudged the issues in this case because he stated that the Walpole site was exhaustively reviewed and approved by the EPA, the MWRA and the Army Corps of Engineers ..., a month after the complaint in this case was filed and before the defendants had answered it. Additionally, in one of the regularly issued compliance orders, dated March 1, 1991, Judge Mazzone stated: 150 I have reviewed the record of decision attached to the permit, and note the Corps finding that the siting process for the Walpole-MCI [landfill] was satisfactory under both NEPA and 404(b)(1) guidelines. 151 We find nothing here which rises to the level of partiality needed to compel recusal. If one considers that the MWRA spent more than $10 million in the site selection process, that the EPA closely monitored the MWRA site selection process and that the Corps issued an extensive Record of Decision supported by the administrative record, it seems more than reasonable to conclude that the site selection process was exhaustively reviewed. And no reasonable person could conclude that merely noting that the Corps had reached a determination under the 404 Guidelines shows that Judge Mazzone was biased. In short, the statements of Judge Mazzone which the Towns claim would cause a reasonable person to question the impartiality of Judge Mazzone are statements which in our opinion state the obvious, and reflect common sense. Given the context in which these remarks were made and their substance, we hold that Towns have failed to show that Judge Mazzone committed an abuse of discretion in denying their motion for his disqualification. 152 Finally, the Towns claim that since Judge Mazzone has overseen compliance with the administration of the scheduling plan to clean up Boston Harbor, his sitting over the adversarial aspects of the case, including this Section 404 case, gives rise to an appearance of partiality requiring disqualification. Since Judge Mazzone has required strict compliance with the compliance plan--including ordering a sewer moratorium to compel the Legislature to transfer the Walpole site--and the Towns' challenge to the Section 404 permitting process represents a threat to the schedule, they contend a reasonable person would question the ability of Judge Mazzone to preside over the Section 404 case. There is a difference, however, between the real appearance of bias, and the fact that a judge is sometimes required to act against the backdrop of official positions he took in other related cases. A judge cannot be replaced every time a case presents an issue with which the judge's prior official decisions and positions may have a connection. This Circuit has made clear that [o]ur system of justices does not require that judges be empty vessels, wholly ignorant of all of the antecedents of a case. Camacho, 868 F.2d at 490. The Towns have made no showing that Judge Mazzone's actions in the Boston Harbor cleanup litigation personally placed him in a position in which he would have been constrained to decide the Section 404 case in favor of the Corps. There were other options compatible with continuing the Boston Harbor cleanup if the Walpole site proved unsatisfactory. We are unwilling to assume that a district judge--of whom there is no question whatever of any personal or improper interest--would be so overcome by concerns in the Boston Harbor cleanup case as to unable to render a just and professional decision in this one. 153 Judge Mazzone carefully considered the merits of the Towns' challenge to the Section 404 permitting process. He rejected the Corps' position that groundwater effects did not have to be considered under 40 C.F.R. § 230.10(c). The fact that Judge Mazzone presided over other cases arising from the effort to clean up Boston Harbor makes him arguably the most qualified judge to preside over this case since his expertise in the legal aspects of the Boston Harbor cleanup will result in a more just and efficient resolution of the issues in cases relating to the Boston Harbor cleanup effort. See, e.g., In re Allied-Signal Inc., 891 F.2d 967, 972 (1st Cir.1989); cert. denied, 495 U.S. 957, 110 S.Ct. 2561, 109 L.Ed.2d 744 (1990). While it is obvious that a judge's prior orders might place him or her in a position that would lead a reasonable person to question whether he or she would remain impartial in a subsequent proceeding, see, e.g., United States v. Chantal, 902 F.2d 1018 (1st Cir.1990) (sentencing judge's views that defendant was an unreconstructed drug trafficker might lead a reasonable person to question the judge's impartiality in a subsequent sentencing proceeding), we do not find this to be such a case. Lopez, 944 F.2d at 37 (minimal factual basis required for an inference of impartiality) (citing United States v. Giorgi, 840 F.2d 1022, 1036 (1st Cir.1988). We add that had another judge been assigned to this case, he or she would plainly not have viewed Walpole's case in a vacuum. That judge would have learned of the Boston Harbor cleanup schedule and would have been exposed to whatever additional concerns compliance with that schedule imposed here. 154 This last point requires us to further comment. Although parties are not to be discouraged or castigated in the pursuit of good faith challenges to the impartiality of a particular judge or judges, neither should such action be taken lightly or without foundation, merely as another tactical weapon in the arsenal of trial strategy. While we understand appellant's feelings, we hold that the disqualification motion in this case was totally without a basis in fact or law. VII. 155 In conclusion, we find that the Corps properly applied its Section 404(b)(1) Guidelines and properly concluded that the landfill was not contrary to the public interest. The district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the defendants' motion to quash the subpoena and protective order and denying the Towns' motion for the judge's disqualification. 156 Affirmed.