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

Heading: Precedential Value of CCOs

Text: 24 A second test of the character of agency documents typed law by the FOIA requester and deliberative by the agency is the precedential weight the agency accords to the documents. Taxation With Representation, supra, 646 F.2d at 682; Coastal States, supra, 617 F.2d at 867. 25 The Agency here points to suggestions in the record that the precedential value of CCOs is limited. CCOs are not circulated throughout the Agency; the Agency's policy is that CCOs are transmitted only to the requesting official, and thereafter are accessible only by that official and Office of the Chief Counsel personnel. J.A. 26. CCOs are not revised or updated to reflect subsequent developments in the cases they address. J.A. 26, 87. Within the Office of the Chief Counsel, no attempt is made to compile the subsequent history of citation to prior CCOs. 26 On these grounds the Maritime Administration describes the CCO index as a mere research tool, a reading file, and insists that CCOs have no binding precedential effect. J.A. 26. But the record is not as clear as the Agency would make it on this score. Indeed, all that the Agency can plausibly assert is that there are ambiguities, some space for debate. One need not search hard to find countervailing indications that CCOs are accorded significant precedential weight. 27 The absence of a method for circulating CCOs within the entire Agency is of little significance when statutory interpretation is a task reserved to the Office of the Chief Counsel, an office that does bind, summarize, index, and distribute to its staff, all CCOs. Moreover, the current Chief Counsel admits that nothing prevents requesting officials from discussing CCOs with other Agency officials. J.A. 59. That CCOs are not updated to reflect the actual dispositions of the cases they address is also of uncertain import. Updating may be unnecessary precisely because CCOs are dispositive, decisional documents; the least deliberative agency documents are also those least in need of updating to reflect subsequent developments. Nor can we draw any firm conclusion from the fact that the subsequent citation history of CCOs is not compiled. Perhaps the relatively small number of CCOs simply does not warrant the preparation of that type of research aid. 28 Material in the record not spotlighted by the Agency securely supports the conclusion that CCOs are often relied on as precedent. 19 One of the typical CCOs reprinted in the record, J.A. 5-9, cites three prior Chief Counsel memoranda as dispositive authority. The affidavit of a practicing attorney who advises clients regarding matters involving the Agency states that CCOs have, not infrequently, been referred to by the [Agency] staff as either determinative or highly persuasive in regard to a legal question arising under the [1936 Merchant Marine] Act. J.A. 16. A former Chief Counsel's affidavit states: 29 During my term as [Chief] Counsel, I, the Deputy [Chief] Counsel, the several Assistant [Chief] Counsel, and the staff attorneys within the Office of the [Chief] Counsel, used the index to consult prior related CCO[s] in preparing new opinions. The resulting CCO[s] often referred to, cited, and distinguished prior CCO[s]. This was done to maintain consistent legal positions within the Office of the [Chief] Counsel. 30 J.A. 75. 20 Finally, the present Chief Counsel concedes: 31 The purpose fulfilled by designating selected legal memoranda as CCOs is to preserve the more significant opinions for future reference by attorneys within the Office of the Chief Counsel. J.A. 26. Asked on deposition what qualifies a memorandum as significant, and therefore a candidate for CCO status, the current Chief Counsel identified only two factors--the amount of research that went into preparing the memorandum, and the likelihood that the question addressed will recur. J.A. 55-56. 32 Reviewing the record as a whole, we think the Agency has failed to demonstrate that it does not accord prior CCOs significant precedential weight. Of course, the Office of the Chief Counsel decides each new case de novo, and retains the power to reject or modify earlier decisions; the same can be said of courts that honor precedent. The question is not whether prior opinions are rigidly followed, but whether they provide important guidance. We conclude that the most likely function of the summary-indexes that Schlefer seeks disclosed is indeed the one he identifies: they serve to facilitate the use of CCOs to guide later decisions. Cf. Taxation With Representation, supra, 646 F.2d at 683. 33