Opinion ID: 483234
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: NTEU's Public Interest Showing

Text: 9 NTEU's original requests gave no indication of how the information requested could be considered as primarily benefiting the general public. Its administrative appeal letter repeatedly stated that a fee waiver was clearly appropriate, but (except for the repetitions) made almost no effort to demonstrate the proposition. 10 A requester seeking a fee waiver bears the initial burden of identifying the public interest to be served. See Ely v. United States Postal Service, 753 F.2d at 165; Ettlinger v. FBI, 596 F.Supp. 867, 874-76 (D.Mass.1984); Lykins v. Rose, 3 Gov't Disclosure Serv. (P.H) p 82,486, at 83,222 (D.D.C. Oct. 4, 1982); Burriss v. CIA, 524 F.Supp. 448, 449 (M.D.Tenn.1981). When a public interest is asserted but not identified with reasonable specificity, and circumstances do not clarify the point of the requests, it is not arbitrary or capricious for an agency to infer, as the Customs Service did here, that any benefit to the public from disclosure and waiver would be, at best, indirect and speculative. J.A. at 35. Cf. American Federation of Government Employees, Local 2782 v. Department of Commerce, 632 F.Supp. 1272, 1278 (D.D.C.1986) (Society undoubtedly has an interest in discovering and subjecting unlawful agency action to public scrutiny, but the Union's allegations of malfeasance here are too ephemeral at the moment to warrant such a [FOIA] search at public expense without further reason to suppose that the corruption suspected will be found.). With only conclusory allegations of the point of the requests before it, the Service naturally found it difficult to discern a basis for the NTEU's assertions of a public interest. Any benefit to the general public that might flow from furnishing the requested information is less than obvious. 11 In opposing the Service's motion for summary judgment, NTEU purported to explain the public interest it intended to invoke. It said that the awards and bonuses information related to possibly improper personnel practices. Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment and in Opposition to Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment at 18. The travel vouchers request related to its claims that Service labor negotiators had engaged in an obstructionist labor relations policy and spent tax dollars unnecessarily, id. at 21-22, and the complaint letters request related to a quota system under which Service employees were awarded points for discovering undeclared merchandise, id. at 27-28. NTEU devotes the greater part of its brief on appeal to further explanation of the public interest in these issues. 12 The public interests identified here would hardly justify fee waivers for all the information requested. Accepting arguendo that the quota system, for example, is indeed the subject of considerable public concern, such concern would not justify waiver of fees for search and duplication of all complaint letters (rather than just quota system complaints). The relationship between the other requests and the public interests identified are similarly tangential. Furthermore, the links between furnishing the requested information and benefiting the general public seem at best tenuous. 13 A detailed examination of these issues is inappropriate, however. The union's efforts to fashion a plausible public benefit theory come too late. The reasonableness of the agency's refusal depends on the information before it at the time of its decision. See Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43, 103 S.Ct. 2856, 2866, 77 L.Ed.2d 443 (1983) (agency rule would normally be arbitrary and capricious if explanation for it runs counter to the evidence before the agency). The union's failure to demonstrate a public interest before the agency cannot be remedied by doing so before a court. Cf. Dettman v. Department of Justice, 802 F.2d 1472, 1476-77 (D.C.Cir.1986) (exhaustion of remedies is an ordinary requirement of FOIA cases). This is not to say that courts should ignore otherwise admissible evidence of a public interest that was not submitted to the agency, however, since such evidence may apprise the court of a controversy already known to the agency. 14 NTEU argues that the agency was well aware of the high degree of public interest in the requested information, since the issues involved were matters of common knowledge. Brief for Appellant at 30-32. After reexamining the requests in light of the affidavits and other papers submitted to the District Court in support of NTEU's cross-motion for summary judgment, we find it impossible to conclude that the agency should have understood the point of NTEU's requests without further elaboration. Thus these submissions provide no excuse for the union's failure in its original waiver requests to give an adequate account of how furnishing the information it sought would benefit the general public.