Opinion ID: 3011324
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Review Costs

Text: The District Court determined that the anticipated costs of notification and evaluation were review costs. OSHA Data argues that these are not the types of costs that are covered by the statutory and regulatory definitions of review costs. FOIA itself contains a definition of review costs: Review costs shall include only the direct costs incurred during the initial examination of a document for the purposes of determining whether the documents must be disclosed under this section and for the purposes of withholding any portions exempt from disclosure under this section. 5 U.S.C. S 552(a)(4)(A)(iv).21 The DOL regulations give _________________________________________________________________ 20. OSHA Data lists four separate issues presented on appeal. OSHA Data Br. at 2. Some involve procedural objections to intermediate decisions of the District Court, including the District Court's decision to affirm the stay and to affirm other orders of the Magistrate Judge. We will not address the procedural aspects of these interlocutory objections to the District Court's intermediate orders, as these aspects do not affect the outcome on appeal; it is a well-known general principle that interlocutory orders merge in the final judgment of the District Court. See Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546 (1949) (stating that 28 U.S.C. SS 1291 and 1292 do not permit appeals, even from fully consummated decisions, where they are but steps towards final judgment in which they will merge). However, OSHA Data can of course attack the substance of the reasoning that underlies the District Court's order affirming the stay, since the substantive basis of this decision -- i.e., that the DOL was justified in charging the costs of the notification to OSHA Data as review costs-- is memorialized, and indeed specifically included, in the District Court's final order of May 10, 1999. See A. at 336-37. To the extent that these objections implicate the substantive issues presented by this appeal, we will dispose of them via our discussion of the merits, see infra section IV.C. 21. FOIA also allows an agency to require advance payment of part of the anticipated costs when those costs are predicted to exceed $250. See 5 U.S.C. S 552(a)(4)(A)(v). 12 further substance to this definition of review costs, terming them the costs associated with . . . [r]eviewing records to determine whether any materials are exempt. 29 C.F.R. S 70.40(a). The regulations define direct costs as those expenditures which an agency actually incurs in searching for and duplicating (and in the case of a commercial requester, reviewing) documents to respond to an[sic] FOIA request, and further specify that these costs include employee salaries. Id. S 70.38(b). The regulations lay out a general rule as to when review costs can be charged to the requester: [C]harges may only be assessed for review at the initial level, i.e. the review undertaken the first time the documents are analyzed to determine the applicability of specific exemptions to the particular record or portion of the record. Thus a requester would not be charged for review at the administrative appeal level with regard to the applicability of an exemption already applied at the initial level. Id. S 70.40(d)(3). The regulations do not specifically make reference to, or provision for, the type of costs at issue here.