Opinion ID: 186701
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Applicability of the Interpretive Presumption

Text: 15 Rule 45(a)(1)(C) provides that every subpoena shall: [C]ommand each person to whom it is directed to attend and give testimony or to produce and permit inspection and copying of designated books, documents or tangible things in the possession, custody or control of that person . . . . 16 Fed.R.Civ.P. 45(a)(1)(C) (emphases added). The Government argues it is not a person subject to this Rule, noting that statutes employing the [word `person'] are ordinarily construed to exclude the sovereign. United States v. Cooper Corp., 312 U.S. 600, 604, 61 S.Ct. 742, 85 L.Ed. 1071 (1941). The Government analogizes this case to Al Fayed, 229 F.3d 272, where we applied the presumption that the Government is not a person and the Dictionary Act, 1 U.S.C. § 1, in construing 28 U.S.C. § 1782, which provides the district court of the district in which a person resides or is found may order him ... to produce a document or other thing for use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal. See Linder, 251 F.3d at 180-81 (discussing Al Fayed and recognizing open question of applicability of Rule 45 to Government). 17 The plaintiffs argue the Dictionary Act and the interpretive presumption that the Government is not a person are inapplicable to Rule 45 because the Federal Rules resulted from a judicial act, not legislation. Even if the presumption does apply, they note the presumption can be overcome if [t]he purpose, the subject matter, the context, [and] the legislative history ... indicate an intent, by the use of the term, to bring [the] state or nation within the scope of the law. Cooper Corp., 312 U.S. at 605, 61 S.Ct. 742. Here, they contend, the purpose, context, and history of Rule 45 bespeak an intent to treat the Government as a person. 18 At the outset, we note that we have found no caselaw applying the Dictionary Act to the Federal Rules, and it is doubtful, though surely not clear, whether the Rules are properly considered an Act of Congress subject to that Act, 1 U.S.C. § 1. In the Rules Enabling Act, 28 U.S.C. § 723(b) (1934), the Congress gave the Supreme Court of the United States ... the power to prescribe, by general rules, the process to be followed in the district courts of the United States. The Congress additionally provided that the rules governing civil procedure would not go into effect until they shall have been reported to Congress by the Attorney General at the beginning of a regular session thereof and until after the close of such session. Id. § 723(c). Therefore, although the Congress did not draft and did not affirmatively adopt the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, see 4 Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure § 1004 (3d ed.2002), it did authorize their creation, and consequently it is not entirely clear the definitions of the Dictionary Act should not apply to the Rules. 19 This is not a question we need decide today, however. Because the definition of person in the Dictionary Act, 1 U.S.C. § 1 (defining person to include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals), upon which the Government relies was passed in 1947, the framers of Rule 45 were not guided by it when, in 1937, they provided that a person may be subpoenaed to testify or to produce documents. Fed.R.Civ.P. 45(a)(1)(C). The definition in place at the time the Rules were adopted was broader, stating that in all acts hereafter passed. . . the word `person' may extend and be applied to bodies politic and corporate ... unless the context shows that such words were intended to be used in a more limited sense. Act of Feb. 25, 1871, § 2, 16 Stat. 431. As the Supreme Court explained in Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 69 n. 9, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989), conflicting authorities from that time render the definition ambiguous with regard to whether it includes the States within its reach. Cf. Cooper Corp., 312 U.S. at 605, 61 S.Ct. 742 (looking at various factors to discern intent to bring state or nation within the scope of the law). Regardless whether the plaintiffs are correct in positing broadly that the current definition of person in the Dictionary Act does not apply to judicially-adopted rules, therefore, we can agree more narrowly that it does not apply to a Rule promulgated before the current version of the Act was passed, see Will, 491 U.S. at 69-70, 109 S.Ct. 2304 (applying original definition to interpret statute passed before 1947), and it does not control our analysis in this case. 20 Next, we agree with the plaintiffs that the district court erred in presuming the Government is not a person covered by Rule 45. As the Supreme Court made clear in Nardone v. United States, 302 U.S. 379, 58 S.Ct. 275, 82 L.Ed. 314 (1937) (rejecting Government's invocation of presumption where it would have made statute prohibiting wire-tapping presumptively inapplicable to Government), which was issued the same day the Court adopted the Federal Rules, at common law the Government was presumed not to be a person bound by statute in only two types of cases: (1) where the statute, if not so limited, would deprive the sovereign of a recognized or established prerogative title or interest, such as a statute of limitations; and (2) where deeming the Government a person would work obvious absurdity as, for example, the application of a speed law to a policeman pursuing a criminal or the driver of a fire engine responding to an alarm. Id. at 383-84, 58 S.Ct. 275; see also In re Vioxx Prods. Liab. Litig., 235 F.R.D. 334 (E.D.La.2006) (analyzing Supreme Court cases to explain why presumption was limited to the two situations there identified). 21 Rule 45 falls into neither class. First, the Government has no established prerogative not to respond when subpoenaed. On the contrary, as Justice Frankfurter noted in his concurrence in Touhy, the Government had agreed as early as 1900, see Boske v. Comingore, 177 U.S. 459, 462, 20 S.Ct. 701, 44 L.Ed. 846, that records requested for a suit in which it was not a party could be secured by a subpoena duces tecum to the head of the Treasury Department. 340 U.S. at 471-72, 71 S.Ct. 416 (quoting Brief for Appellee [in Boske v. Comingore ] at 459, 20 S.Ct. 701). Second, application of Rule 45 to the Government would work no obvious absurdity. The Rules were designed to provide a liberal opportunity for discovery, Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957), and, as discussed below, there is no indication the Government should be exempt from the obligation of a nonparty to provide its evidence pursuant to subpoena. 22 Because Rule 45 neither deprives the United States of an established prerogative nor works an obvious absurdity, therefore, the framers of the Rules would not have understood their use of the term person presumptively to exclude the Government. Our decision in Al Fayed, the centerpiece of the Government's argument, is in no wise contrary. The statute being interpreted in that case, 28 U.S.C. § 1782 (1948), unlike Rule 45, post-dated the amendment to the Dictionary Act, 1 U.S.C. § 1 (1947), that defines the word person, when used in any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise, to include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals, but makes no mention of governments. See also United States v. United Mine Workers of Am., 330 U.S. 258, 275, 67 S.Ct. 677, 91 L.Ed. 884 (1947) (Congress made express provision [in the Dictionary Act], for the term [`person'] to extend to partnerships and corporations.... The absence of any comparable provision extending the term to sovereign governments implies that Congress did not desire the term to extend to them). In Al Fayed, therefore, the Dictionary Act as amended in 1947 required that § 1782 be interpreted so as to exclude the Government. As we have seen, however, Rule 45 is outside the realm governed by the 1947 amendment to the Dictionary Act, and, as noted above, the earlier version of that Act is ambiguous. Therefore, we follow the guidance of the Supreme Court as to when the Government is presumed not to be a person, and this is not such a case.