Court Opinion

ID: 9465293
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:41:52.894915+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:05.605018
License: Public Domain

MacKINNON, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I join generally in Judge Leventhal’s opinion but wish to add the following observations.
5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3) provides: “[Ejach agency, upon any request for records . . . shall make the records promptly available to any person.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B) also refers to the location of “agency records ” as constituting one basis for conferring on the district court for that district “jurisdiction to enjoin the agency from withholding agency records and to order the production of any agency records improperly withheld from the complaint. In such a case the court . . . may examine the contents of such agency records in camera . . .” (Emphasis added.) A fair conclusion from the foregoing indicates that it is not just “records” but “agency records” that the statute is addressing.
The court’s opinion at page-of 190 U.S.App.D.C., at page 1136 of 587 F.2d states:
The governing principle is that only if a federal agency has obtained a record (or has a duty to obtain the record) in the course of doing its work, is there an agency record that can be demanded under FOIA. [Emphasis added.]
The italicized statement is not necessary to our decision and I do not join in it. Each particular case involving a request for records not in the possession of an agency but for which, it is alleged, there is some duty to obtain the records must be decided on its particular circumstances. I would leave to a future opinion any declaration as to the extent to which the FOIA should be interpreted to cover records not created by, obtained by, or otherwise in the possession of an agency. The plain implication derived from the language of the statute is that it does apply to records which belong to the agency or are in its possession — that is, records which the agency has created or obtained. That is all that is needed to decide this case. I would not refer to records about which it might be said that an agency might have some duty to obtain until such time as we are presented with a case that raises the question directly and presents to us all the relevant facts necessary to decide the applicability of the FOIA to that situation.
The dissent would go even further and substitute for the normal interpretation of the language of the statute a meaning to be derived from an extraneous examination of “all the relevant circumstances surrounding the creation, preservation, and use of [the] particular records” (Dissent at-of 190 U.S.App.D.C., at 1142 of 587 F.2d, emphasis original). Then, “[i]f this analysis re*1140veals a significant degree of federal involvement with the records, then they should be considered agency ‘records’ subject to FOIA” (Id., footnote omitted). The catch is allowing the interpretation of the statute to turn upon what a judge might consider a “significant degree of federal involvement.” The attempt is to impose a “chancellor’s foot” standard which varies with each judge. The statute, however, is not susceptible of such construction, and happily so, for those whose foot gives them a short standard would find records to be “agency records” wherever there was any federal funding or access to the records. That standard, as applied by some courts, would extend the FOIA to practically unlimited lengths in those universities and industries which engage in private research. If Congress desires the Act to be so extended, it can do so by enacting appropriate legislation; but my view coincides with that expressed in Judge Leventhal’s opinion, that such an extreme extension of the Act should not be created by judicial fiat.
In reaching this conclusion, I see no harm to the public. Where particular records are the subject of legitimate inquiry, as in the two cases referred to in the dissent, they may be subpoenaed by interested parties.