Opinion ID: 430600
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Improperly Withheld

Text: 15 The D.C. District Court relied on GTE Sylvania, Inc. v. Consumers Union, 445 U.S. 375, 100 S.Ct. 1194, 63 L.Ed.2d 467 (1980), to hold that, although the presentence report was an agency record, it had not been improperly withheld. See Dist.Ct.Op. at 4, JA 79. In GTE Sylvania a Delaware District Court had issued an injunction forbidding the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) from releasing certain documents to the public. After the injunction was issued, Consumers Union filed a suit in D.C. District Court seeking release of the documents under FOIA. CPSC's defense in that suit was that it had not improperly withheld the documents, because its withholding was merely in obedience to the Delaware court order. The Supreme Court agreed with CPSC that the agency's withholding of the documents was not improper; since such impropriety is a prerequisite for a court to order release of documents under FOIA, see Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. 136, 150, 100 S.Ct. 960, 968, 63 L.Ed.2d 267 (1980), the Supreme Court held that the D.C. District Court could not grant such relief. 16 According to the D.C. District Court, the Virginia District Court's policy forbidding the Parole Commission to release presentence reports is analogous to the injunction that was issued by the Delaware District Court in GTE Sylvania. However, the reasoning of GTE Sylvania in fact undermines the D.C. District Court's holding. As the Supreme Court noted, GTE Sylvania was an application of the established doctrine that persons subject to an injunctive order issued by a court with jurisdiction are expected to obey that decree until it is modified or reversed, even if they have proper grounds to object to the order. 445 U.S. at 386, 100 S.Ct. at 1201. The rationale of that decision, as elucidated in such well-known cases as United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U.S. 258, 67 S.Ct. 677, 91 L.Ed. 884 (1947), and Walker v. City of Birmingham, 388 U.S. 307, 314-321, 87 S.Ct. 1824, 1828-1832, 18 L.Ed.2d 1210 (1967), is that those who object to a court order are expected to make their objection by means of the rules and procedures in accord with which the judicial system operates, for a court's ability to command adherence to its procedures and to resolve disputes depends on its ability to compel obedience to orders properly issued. Those rules and procedures provide a fair opportunity to object to or appeal mistaken rulings, and even interested individuals who are not parties to the proceedings have the opportunity to intervene under the modern Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See, e.g., Fed.R.Civ.P. 24. 17 In this case, however, there were no formal judicial proceedings, no opportunity for Mr. Lykins to object to the court's policy, no chance for intervention, and no concrete case or controversy before the Virginia District Court. 6 In these circumstances--very different from GTE Sylvania's formal injunction issued after a proceeding to which Consumers Union could easily have become a party--the Virginia District Court's policy deserves no greater deference than the expressed desires of any other governmental body. To the extent that the Parole Commission has control of the presentence report--as we held in Carson--the policies of the Virginia District Court do not override appellant's right under FOIA to see the report. Whatever may be the power of the Virginia District Court to order its own business on the basis of policies of this character, that court cannot by articulating its desires on its own motion determine the rights of third parties not before it and over whom it has no jurisdiction. 18 The consequence of accepting the D.C. District Court's understanding of GTE Sylvania would be once again to let in through the back door the arguments we rejected in Carson. The Virginia District Court's policy is relevant, if at all, only to the question whether it has retained control of the presentence report and thus prevented it from becoming an agency record subject to FOIA. As we discussed above, in Carson we answered that question by holding that a District Court cannot so retain control. The inquiry into whether a document is improperly withheld is a very different inquiry, directed not at the desires of the originating agency (whether it be a court, Congress, or other governmental body not covered by FOIA), but at the question whether a court of competent jurisdiction over the subject matter and over the parties has issued a valid injunction. 7 Considerations relevant to the application of the Goland control test would rarely, if ever, be relevant to the latter inquiry into the jurisdiction of a court. We refuse to transform the latter inquiry into an opportunity for the parties to re-litigate issues of control over documents that should be properly resolved in terms of the Goland control test for agency records. 19