Opinion ID: 491446
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Exemption (b)(5): Deliberative Process and Attorney Work Product Privileges

Text: 31 The DOJ withheld a number of documents, or portions thereof, pursuant to the statutory exemption for memorandums or letters which would not be available by law to a party other than the agency in litigation with the agency. 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(b)(5) (1982). The DOJ claimed generally that the documents expressed candid and confidential legal policy advice ... subject to the attorney work product privilege, as well as being part of the Department's pre-decisional deliberative process. 34 A typical entry in the DOJ's index to its withheld documents reads: 32 Memo dated 8-20-80 from Stephen Clark, Attorney, CRT, to Charles Wellford, Deputy Administrator, Federal Justice Research Program. (2 pages). RE: Report on status of Cerro Maravilla case.... [C]andid discussion and recommendation as to strategy is deleted to protect the intra-agency deliberative process and attorney work-product. 35 33 The district court held that the DOJ provided sufficient justification for its deliberative process/attorney work product exemption decisions insofar as the Department set out each document being withheld, why it is being withheld[,] and the nature of the document to the extent feasible without revealing any details regarding the privileged contents of the document. 36 We disagree with this assessment; if the DOJ continues to resist disclosure of these documents after remand of this action, it must supply additional information so that a reviewing court can sensibly determine whether each invocation of deliberative process privilege or work product shield is properly grounded. 34 We begin with two fundamentals. First, Congress intended to confine exemption (b)(5) as narrowly as [is] consistent with efficient Government operation. Coastal States Gas Corp. v. Dep't of Energy, 617 F.2d 854, 868 (D.C.Cir.1980) (quoting S. Rep. No. 813, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. at 9 (1965)). Second, documents covered by either the attorney work product doctrine or the deliberative process privilege are unquestionably exempt from FOIA disclosure. See id.; NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 421 U.S. 132, 150-55, 95 S.Ct. 1504, 1516-19, 44 L.Ed.2d 29 (1975). We have repeatedly underscored, however, that the agency invoking a FOIA exemption bears the burden of establish[ing] [its] right to withhold evidence from the public. Coastal States, 617 F.2d at 861. We have simultaneously cautioned that conclusory assertions of privilege will not suffice to carry the agency's burden. Id.; see Mead Data Central, Inc. v. Dep't of the Air Force, 566 F.2d 242, 258 (D.C.Cir.1977) (government must show by specific and detailed proof that disclosure would defeat, rather than further, the purposes of the FOIA); see also Parke, Davis & Co. v. Califano, 623 F.2d 1, 6 (6th Cir.1980) (in light of the overwhelming thrust of FOIA ... toward complete disclosure, exemption 5 claims must be supported with specificity and [in] detail). 35 We do not endeavor an encompassing definition of conclusory assertion; for present purposes, it is enough to observe that where no factual support is provided for an essential element of the claimed privilege or shield, the label conclusory is surely apt. The information provided by the DOJ--consisting almost entirely of each document's issue date, its author and intended recipient, and the briefest of references to its subject matter 37 --will not do. 36 We have previously identified two prerequisites to the assertion of the deliberative process privilege: 37 In deciding whether a document should be protected by the privilege we look to whether the document is predecisional--whether it was generated before the adoption of an agency policy--and whether the document is deliberative--whether it reflects the give-and-take of the consultative process. 38 Coastal States, 617 F.2d at 866; accord Jordan, 591 F.2d at 774; Paisley v. CIA, 712 F.2d 686, 698 (D.C.Cir.1981), vacated in part on other grounds, 724 F.2d 201 (D.C.Cir.1984); Arthur Andersen & Co. v. IRS, 679 F.2d 254, 257 (D.C.Cir.1982). A document is predecisional if it precedes, in temporal sequence, the decision to which it relates. Accordingly, to approve exemption of a document as predecisional, a court must be able to pinpoint an agency decision or policy to which the document contributed. Paisley, 712 F.2d at 698. We search in vain through the supporting material submitted by the DOJ for any identification of the specific final decisions to which the advice or recommendations contained in the withheld documents contributed; absent that, we are not positioned to pass upon the applicability vel non of this privilege. 38 39 The failure to specify the relevant final decision constitutes a sufficient ground for remanding this aspect of the case to the district court. We remind the DOJ, however, that it must do more if it chooses to renew predecisional characterizations as a basis for exempting documents from FOIA's disclosure rule. Predecisional communications are not exempt merely because they are predecisional; they must also be a part of the agency give-and-take ... by which the decision itself is made. Vaughn, 523 F.2d at 1144. The agency must establish what deliberative process is involved, and the role played by the documents in issue in the course of that process. Coastal States, 617 F.2d at 868. 40 We are cognizant that general guidelines are of limited utility in this area, for the deliberative process privilege is so dependent upon the individual document and the role it plays in the administrative process. Id. at 867. Our case law, however, identifies two factors that can assist the court in determining whether this privilege is available: the nature of the decisionmaking authority vested in the officer or person issuing the disputed document, Taxation with Representation Fund v. IRS, 646 F.2d 666, 678 (D.C.Cir.1981), and the relative positions in the agency's chain of command occupied by the document's author and recipient. Andersen, 679 F.2d at 258; see also Schlefer v. United States, 702 F.2d 233, 238 (D.C.Cir.1983) (intra-agency memoranda from subordinate to superior more likely to be deliberative in character than documents traveling in opposite direction); Bristol-Myers Co. v. FTC, 598 F.2d 18, 28 n. 20 (D.C.Cir.1978) ([D]etailed information about the agency's decision-making process is essential ... to a fair determination of the agency's [deliberative process] claims.). It does not appear from the current record that the DOJ has adverted with care to the case law we have here recalled. 41 The information provided by the DOJ with respect to its attorney work-product claims is similarly inadequate. Here again, the claims have surface plausibility; internal memoranda concerning the status of a criminal investigation, prepared by DOJ attorneys in the course of their law enforcement duties, are surely the kind of documents commonly sheltered by the work product doctrine. But here too, a critical element of the DOJ's entitlement to the claimed shield awaits proof. The work product doctrine does not extend to every written document generated by an attorney, Jordan, 591 F.2d at 775; rather, work product covers only documents prepared in contemplation of litigation. Sears, 421 U.S. at 154, 95 S.Ct. at 1518; Coastal States, 617 F.2d at 864; Bristol-Myers, 598 F.2d at 28-29; see also FED.R.CIV.P. 26(b)(3) (documents prepared in anticipation of litigation or for trial are discoverable only upon a showing of substantial need). 42 By affidavit, the DOJ asserted that the withheld documents were prepared by Civil Rights Division attorneys in anticipation of litigation. 39 We find no other reference in the DOJ's submissions to this essential element of its work product claim. We need not here decide whether so bare an assertion could ever suffice to carry the agency's burden, for the facts of this case raise enough questions as to its accuracy to render it insufficient as a matter of law. 43 In particular, we note that the DOJ investigation into the Cerro Maravilla incident was closed officially on April 16, 1980, 40 and did not reopen until August 1983; absent any additional support, we are reluctant to credit a claim that documents generated while there was no active investigation underway 41 were prepared in anticipation of litigation. 42 The mere fact that the memoranda deal with the Cerro Maravilla incident, which was to be the focus of a later criminal proceeding, does not establish that there was even the dimmest expectation of litigation when these documents were drafted. Coastal States, 617 F.2d at 865 (emphasis added). While it may be true that the prospect of future litigation touches virtually any object of a DOJ attorney's attention, if the agency were allowed to withhold any document prepared by any person in the Government with a law degree simply because litigation might someday occur, the policies of the FOIA would be largely defeated. Id. 44 We conclude, therefore, not that the documents are not exempt as a matter of law, but that the agency has failed to supply us with even the minimal information necessary to make a determination. Coastal States, 617 F.2d at 861. We appreciate the difficult task confronting district court judges facing inherently fact-dependent exemption (5) claims, and the necessarily limited role proclamations from appellate courts can play in this process. Our decision in Mead Data remains perhaps the best general guide to both the detail agencies must provide to support exemption (5) claims and, correlatively, the level of scrutiny appropriate in court evaluation of those claims. 45 In reviewing the Air Force's assertion of the attorney-client privilege in Mead Data, we found adequate evidence that the information ... was communicated to or by an attorney as part of a professional relationship, 566 F.2d at 253; however, the material submitted by the Air Force either gave no indication as to the confidentiality of the information on which [the documents were] based, id. at 253-54 (emphasis added), a factor essential to the existence of the privilege, or supported a contrary inference that at least part of [the document's] information base was not confidential. Id. at 255 (emphasis added). Similarly, with respect to the Air Force's deliberative process claim, the court examined each document's position within the agency's decision making process. Documents shown to contain evaluations, opinions, and recommendations [constituting] the raw materials which went into the decision in question--whether to contract with West Publishing Company regarding a computerized legal research system, id. at 248--were protected from disclosure. Id. at 257. On the other hand, a document merely summarizing the offers and counteroffers made by each side during negotiations was not considered reflective of the agency's deliberative process and could be disclosed consistent with the policy of encouraging the free exchange of ideas among administrative personnel. Id. 46 FOIA enunciates a general philosophy of full agency disclosure, Jordan, 591 F.2d at 755, and therefore requires attentive judicial review of agency exemption claims. The review obligation FOIA imposes upon courts requires us to demand more detailed information than the DOJ has submitted in this case. Faithful implementation of the statute add[s] significantly to the resource costs an agency--and, we might add, reviewing courts--must bear if [the agency] chooses not to disclos[e] material. Mead Data, 566 F.2d at 261. The costs must be borne, however, if the congressional policy embodied in FOIA is to be well served. 47