Opinion ID: 495403
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: OFCCP's Expert's Report

Text: 61 CNA registers an additional objection predicated upon OFCCP's refusal to produce Dr. Fjelsted's report for CNA's examination and rebuttal. 217 CNA believes that the information contained in this report weighed heavily in OFCCP's assessment of competitive effect, and that CNA's inability to respond specifically to the expert's conclusion constituted reversible error. 218 The agency, for its part, asserts that the report was a deliberative, predecisional document privileged against disclosure through discovery. 219 We discuss this issue separately because it demands careful balancing of the competing interests of both sides. 62 Our analysis begins, as it must, with a guarantee attending agency adjudication. A precept fundamental to the administrative process is that a party must have an opportunity to refute evidence utilized by the agency in decisionmaking affecting his or her rights. 220 A decade ago, in Ralpho v. Bell, 221 we declined to uphold a property valuation by the Micronesian Claims Commission that was based in part on evidence unavailable to Ralpho. A value study, conducted and used by the Commission in assessing property claims, was actually an assemblage of interviews, records, and other data relating the average price of goods and services in Micronesia. 222 We held that, the Commission, by denying Ralpho an opportunity to inspect and counter the factual information compiled in the study, impermissibly truncated even the minimal procedures required of an agency. 223 63 The general requirements of disclosure to a litigant of material to be considered by an agency in an adjudicative proceeding 224 is modified where the agency asserts a privilege respecting material generated in the process of agency decisionmaking. 225 When agency material is deliberative 226 or recommendatory 227 in character, and does not of itself inject new factual data into the calculus, the agency is privileged to withhold it. This privilege is designed to ensure the full measure of agency decisionmaking; 228 by removing the chilling effect of possible future disclosure, inhibitions on candid expression are dissolved. 229 64 The materials at issue here consist solely of Dr. Fjelsted's analysis of the information already submitted by CNA to OFCCP and his recommendations as to the course he felt it should follow. 230 Dr. Fjelsted did not provide any new data of his own. The District Court conducted an in camera inspection 231 of Dr. Fjelsted's reports and concluded: 65 A review of the reports and the affidavit by Kenneth G. Patton, acting director of the OFCCP, demonstrates that ... [Fjelsted's reports] contain document-by-document recommendations to the agency as to how it should act on CNA's claims that disclosure would lead to competitive harm. These recommendations were part of the agency give-and-take by which its final determination was made. 232 66 It is clear enough to us that OFCCP was entitled to shield from discovery reports consisting solely of analyses of data and recommendations of agency action predicated thereon. Unlike the appellant in Ralpho v. Bell, 233 CNA was not confronted with an unascertainable store of knowledge which it was called upon haphazardly to rebut. The factual information relied on by Dr. Fjelsted was, of course, available to CNA; indeed, much of it was supplied by CNA itself. 234 Furthermore, Dr. Fjelsted's analysis, though perhaps influential in OFCCP's appraisal of the commercial impact of the contested material, was in no sense binding, for OFCCP was free to modify or even reject these analyses and recommendations. We conclude that CNA has no legally cognizable basis for complaining of OFCCP's decision to withhold Dr. Fjelsted's report. 67 It likewise is clear that the agency's privilege to withhold the reports is unaffected by the fact that they were prepared by a consultant from outside the agency. In Ryan v. Department of Justice, 235 we recognized that 68 [i]n the course of its day-to-day activities, an agency often needs to rely on the opinions and recommendations of temporary consultants, as well as its own employees. Such consultations are an integral part of its deliberative process; to conduct this process in public view would inhibit frank discussion of policy matters and likely impair the quality of decisions. 236 69 Thus, in that case we held exempt from production those nonfactual portions of responses by Senators to questionnaires propounded by the Attorney General. 237 Any material that might reveal decisionmaking or policymaking activity was considered privileged. 238 70 Similarly, courts have repeatedly found that a privilege attaches to reports of outsiders commissioned by an agency to perform agency work, when such reports would be protected if compiled within the agency itself. 239 Whether the author is a regular agency employee or a temporary consultant is irrelevant; the pertinent element is the role, if any, that the document plays in the process of agency deliberations. If information communicated is deliberative in character it is privileged from disclosure, notwithstanding its creation by an outsider. 240 71 A moment's reflection will reveal the reason why. Professor Davis, in discussing the difficulty of the task confronting agency decisionmakers, has commented that able administrators ... have almost uniformly concluded that deciding officers should have the assistance both of reviewing staffs and of agency specialists. 241 Moreover, it is clear that deciding officers need the special strength that comes from ready access to staff specialists. 242 Then, too, federal agencies occasionally will encounter problems outside their ken, and it clearly is preferable that they enlist the help of outside experts skilled at unravelling their knotty complexities. 243 72 This is not to say that any material derived from an outside expert is inviolable; factual data, for example, are still susceptible to discovery. 244 But where, as here, a consultant is retained to evaluate information and submit recommendations as to decisions thereon, the advice or opinion transmitted to the agency is subject to privileged withholding. To force an exposure is to stifle honest and frank communication 245 between agency and expert by inhibiting their free exchange of thought.