Opinion ID: 415475
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Coastal States and Taxation with Representation

Text: 34 Two recent decisions of this court resolve FOIA questions closely analogous to those before us today. Our decision has been guided by and is in full harmony with those prior decisions. 35 In Coastal States, supra, the plaintiffs sought disclosure of documents prepared by regional counsel of the Department of Energy (DOE). The documents were legal memoranda interpreting DOE regulations in the context of particular facts presented to counsel by Agency auditors. The Agency invoked FOIA Exemption 5, claiming, inter alia, that the documents were part of the intra-agency deliberative process and within the scope of the attorney-client privilege. A panel of this court rejected both arguments. 36 The tone and apparent purpose of the memoranda involved in Coastal States are similar to those of the sample CCOs in the record before us. Compare, for example, 617 F.2d at 859 n. 6 with J.A. 12-13. Both sets of documents comprise legal memoranda that announce, in straight-forward, objective, and impersonal prose, counsels' constructions of regulations or statutes. The documents are not cast as suggestions or recommendations, and do not address general questions of agency policy. They do not invite a response from the requesting official; they contain no hint that they are anything but final. 37 In Coastal States, as here, the Agency insisted that the documents were not formal Agency interpretations or decisions, 21 and noted that a separate procedure existed for announcing such interpretations. 22 The Agency in Coastal States, like the Maritime Administration, maintained that the documents sought did not furnish law of the case to which they were addressed because the interpretations were not 'binding' on the audit staff, 23 and because the agency staff '[was] free to reject the memorand[a].'  24 In Coastal States, as here, in fact the advice was regularly and consistently followed by the non-legal staff.... 617 F.2d at 860. 38 The precedential value accorded the documents in Coastal States may have been marginally greater than that accorded CCOs. The Coastal States court noted: 39 [I]n some of the offices the documents were indexed by subject matter and used as precedent in later cases; they were circulated among the area offices and supplied to new personnel; they were at times amended or rescinded, which would hardly be necessary if the documents contained merely informal suggestions to staff which could be disregarded; and on at least one occasion a regional counsel memorandum involving the audit of a different firm was cited to a member of the public as binding precedent. 40 617 F.2d at 860 (footnotes omitted). However, the difference between this aspect of Coastal States and our case is slight. CCOs are not circulated within the Agency and are never amended or rescinded. On the other hand, they are indexed, and have been cited more than once as binding precedent. The minor differences between the two cases barely detract from their marked similarities. 41 Taxation With Representation, supra, involved a request for several types of documents prepared by the IRS's Chief Counsel. The documents most analogous to CCOs were General Counsel's Memoranda (GCMs) prepared by the Agency's Counsel on request by the Assistant Commissioner, usually in connection with the review of proposed private letter rulings, technical advice memoranda, and revenue rulings. With minor exceptions for Memoranda rejected by the Assistant Commissioner, this court ordered GCMs disclosed. 646 F.2d at 682. 42 In an attempt to distinguish the decision in Taxation With Representation, the Maritime Administration points out that GCMs are sometimes revised in line with the final decision taken by the Assistant Commissioner. In contrast, CCOs are never updated. This ground for distinction is unpersuasive, however, since GCM rewriting is done by the subordinate official who prepares the document (the Chief Counsel) to reflect a different decision made by the superior, the Assistant Commissioner. That updating process eliminates whatever deliberative character these documents may have had prior to their being 'updated' or 'reconciled.'  646 F.2d at 682. CCOs, which are not transmitted from subordinate to superior officer, have, from the beginning, no deliberative character to be eliminated. In short, document updating may confirm that the final product is not deliberative, but the absence of updating does not establish that the unrevised document is.