Opinion ID: 2584390
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Scope of the Deliberative Process Privilege

Text: [¶ 33] Among jurisdictions that recognize the deliberative process privilege, its scope is limited generally to communications between executive officials that are both pre-decisional and deliberative. Mapother v. Dep't of Justice, 3 F.3d 1533, 1537 (D.C.Cir.1993). It extends to any executive branch employee participating in a particular policy decision; the communication must be intra-governmental, but can be either inter-agency or intra-agency; and the official may be elected or appointed. Imwinkelried, supra, at 1345. The privilege protects only pre-decisional materials, not final decisions. Id. at 1346. [¶ 34] For the privilege to apply, the document must be generated while the government agency is engaged in a legitimate deliberative process. Id. at 1350. As stated in Kaiser, 157 F.Supp. at 947, application of the privilege is limited to intra-agency advisory opinions and does not apply to primary facts upon which conclusions are based. A document is privileged if its disclosure would lay bare the discussion and methods of reasoning of public officials and withholding it is necessary to protect free discussion of prospective operations and policy. Id. As summarized by Imwinkelried, supra, at 1350-54, the deliberative process privilege protects only material reflecting integral parts of the decision-making processsuggestions, advisory opinions, recommendations, projections, proposals, and deliberations. The material must reflect personal opinions and ruminations about how to exercise discretion on some policy matter. To be protected, the material must document the interactive give-and-take of the consultative process..... .... [A]s a general proposition, the deliberative process privilege does not protect purely factual information ... [unless] the factual data is so inextricably intertwined with the deliberative portions of the report that the two sections cannot be feasibly severed. [¶ 35] The task of determining whether a particular document falls within the deliberative process privilege because it contains advisory opinions, deliberations or the exercise of discretion on some policy, or is instead outside the scope of the privilege because it contains purely factual information, can be difficult. Trentadue v. Integrity Committee, 501 F.3d 1215, 1227 (10th Cir.2007). Determining whether the privilege applies is dependent upon the particular document and its role in the administrative process. Id., citing Coastal States Gas Corp. v. Dep't of Energy, 617 F.2d 854, 867 (D.C.Cir.1980). In Mink, 410 U.S. at 87-88, 93 S.Ct. at 836-37, the U.S. Supreme Court distinguished between factual information and deliberative materials as follows: [T]he privilege that has been held to attach to intragovernmental memoranda clearly has finite limits, even in civil litigation. In each case, the question was whether production of the contested document would be injurious to the consultative functions of government that the privilege of nondisclosure protects. Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp., supra, at 946. Thus, in the absence of a claim that disclosure would jeopardize state secrets, (citation omitted) memoranda consisting only of compiled factual material or purely factual material contained in deliberative memoranda and severable from its context would generally be available for discovery by private parties in litigation with the Government. [¶ 36] Since Mink, courts have reached varying results when applying the factual/deliberative distinction. The Ninth Circuit, for example, has exempted even factual materials from disclosure when they reveal the mental processes of decision-makers. National Wildlife Federation v. U.S.F.S., 861 F.2d 1114, 1119 (9th Cir.1988). In Trentadue, 501 F.3d at 1228, however, the Tenth Circuit said: Information is not protected simply because disclosure would reveal some minor or obvious detail of an agency's decision making process. Were that the test, Exemption 5 would swallow FOIA entirely. It is difficult to imagine a document that would not divulge some tidbit regarding an agency's deliberative process. Moreover, the ... overly broad reading is contrary to our duty to construe FOIA's exemptions narrowly. Consistent with our sister circuits, we hold that factual information may be protected under Exemption 5 under certain narrow circumstances: when disclosure would so expose the deliberative process within an agency that it must be deemed exempted. [¶ 37] In the present case, the district court reviewed the documents and stated: It is the view of the Court that the documents at issue simply are not of the sort to which the [privilege] applies. [The State's] own cited standards include a requirement that the material be actually related to deliberation or policy-making as opposed to factual or informational. The plan or proposal of the Department of Health does not fit that description. The documents amount to spreadsheets showing for the various programs and activities presently authorized amounts of money, the amounts as reduced by 5% and 10%, funding source for the various programs, and finally, under a column labeled Impact the agency's statement, in general terms, of what would be the result for the program or activity if the amount allocated were to be diminished. Not surprisingly, it says that certain services offered by the Department would be reduced. It suggests no adverse consequences for others. It appears that restrictions in the amount of some services if the funds allocated for them are reduced would be almost a foregone conclusion. That is, there appears to be little by way of personal opinion or advice offered by the agency head individually. Indeed, the materials do not identify an individual writer. The material appears not to be predominantly opinions about policy-making by way of recommendations for prioritization. While it indicates curtailments of some programs or services if the funding for them is reduced, it does not weigh, or evaluate the relative merits of reducing one service at the expense of another, for example. It appears not to be the sort of close, personal opinion advice contemplated by cases that apply the privilege. [¶ 38] Having considered the documents the State submitted for in camera review we agree that the plans essentially provide factual information rather than advisory opinions or deliberative thought processes. The spread sheets show dollar amounts, recommended cuts and the potential impact of those cuts. They do not contain personal opinion or advice nor do they reveal information about how the agency decided which program budgets should be cut. We conclude disclosure would [not] `so expose the deliberative process within an agency' that the records must be withheld from public inspection. Trentadue, 501 F.3d at 1228. Borrowing language from Kaiser, 157 F.Supp. at 947, we conclude disclosure would not lay bare the discussion and methods of reasoning of public officials and withholding the documents is not necessary to protect free discussion of prospective operations and policy. Even under the broadest interpretation, the plans do not fall within the deliberative process privilege.