Opinion ID: 333210
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The FOIA--General Principles

Text: 13 The Freedom of Information Act has been discussed by this court several times before. 9 The Act 'establish(es) a general philosophy of full agency disclosure unless information is exempted under clearly delineated statutory language.' S.Rep.No.813, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. 3 (1965). Thus, all federal agency records are prima facie disclosable to any member of the public who requests and 'reasonably describes' them. § 552(a)(3). 10 If the materials are among those described by subsection (a)(2), including 'final opinions . . . made in the adjudication of cases' and 'instructions to staff that affect a member of the public,' the agency has an additional duty: it must not only release the documents to the public, but also maintain and make available current indexes listing those materials. The agency can escape these responsibilities only if it sustains the burden of showing that the documents fall within one or more of the exemptions in subsection (b). Two such exemptions, those pertaining to intra-agency memoranda (Exemption 5) 11 and investigatory records (Exemption 7), 12 are said to apply in this case. 14 Sears is the preeminent precedent applying this Act to the NLRB. The plaintiff sought memoranda which the General Counsel had issued to the Regional Offices. These memoranda told Regional Directors how to dispose of certain cases and expressed reasons to justify those outcomes. The Supreme Court stated that Exemption 5 embodies at least two common-law privileges for government memoranda. First, it preserves in the FOIA context the 'executive privilege' protecting predecisional communications, because frank discussion of legal and policy matters' in writing might be inhibited if the discussion were made public; and . . . the 'decisions' and 'policies formulated' would be the poorer as a result.' 13 Second, Exemption 5 preserves the attorney work product privilege announced in Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 67 S.Ct. 385, 91 L.Ed. 451 (1947). Accordingly, the Court held that memoranda of the General Counsel directing the filing of a complaint were exempt from disclosure, since they were work products, and, in any event, did not inform the public about agency law (since an adjudication of the charge was still to come). On the other hand, the Court held that 'final opinions . . . made in the adjudication of cases,' § 552(a)(2)(A), are never within Exemption 5. The Court pointed out that the FOIA executive privilege had generally been deemed inapplicable to post-decisional documents such as 'final opinions', since disclosure of communications made after a decision can hardly injure that decision, and also because the public is vitally interested in knowing the reasons for agency policy. The category of 'final opinions,' according to the Court, included memoranda by the General Counsel which explained decisions not to file a complaint. The Court said that such a memorandum accomplishes 'as 'final' a 'disposition' as an administrative decision can--representing, as it does, an unreviewable rejection of the charge filed by the private party.' 15 Kent now concedes, in light of Sears, that the District Court's order can no longer be sustained insofar as it required release of the Regional Director's decisions that a complaint should issue. But Kent vigorously maintains that under Sears the Regional Director's decisions not to issue a complaint are disclosable 'final opinions.' Thus, the questions before us are whether the investigative reports with their markings, or any portion thereof, are 'final opinions,' and, if not, whether they should be deemed outside of Exemption 5 for any other reason. 16