Court Opinion

ID: 9483440
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:20:28.359642+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:36.747258
License: Public Domain

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge,
with whom SILBERMAN and SENTELLE, Circuit Judges, join, concurring:
While I continue to believe, for the reasons previously given, Critical Mass Energy Project v. NRC, 931 F.2d 939, 947 (D.C.Cir.1991) (Randolph, J., concurring), that the test announced in National Parks and Conservation Ass’n v. Morton, 498 F.2d 765 (D.C.Cir.1974), incorrectly interpreted Exemption 4 of the Freedom of Information Act, 931 F.2d at 947-48, I am persuaded that stare decisis counsels against overruling National Parks.
The Supreme Court rarely overrules its decisions construing statutes. Stare deci-sis is considered “most compelling” in such cases (Hilton v. South Carolina Pub. Rys. Comm’n, — U.S.-,-, 112 S.Ct. 560, 565, 116 L.Ed.2d 560 (1991)). If the Court's interpretation of a statute is perceived as inaccurate or undesirable, legislative modification is possible. See Square D Co. v. Niagara Frontier Tariff Bureau, 476 U.S. 409, 424, 106 S.Ct. 1922, 1930-31, 90 L.Ed.2d 413 (1986), citing, inter alia, Levi, An Introduction to Legal Reasoning, 15 U.Chi.L.Rev. 501, 540 (1948). Congress’ enactment of 28 U.S.C. § 1367 in response to Finley v. United States, 490 U.S. 545, 109 S.Ct. 2003, 104 L.Ed.2d 593 (1989), illustrates as much. Other examples, gathered by the diligent research of Professor Esk-ridge, are collected in his article Overriding Supreme Court Statutory Interpretation Decisions, 101 Yale L.J. 331 *881(1991), which lists congressional “overrides” of 121 Supreme Court statutory interpretation decisions from 1967 to 1990. Id. at 338 (Table 1). This is not to suggest that Congress acts only in response to judicial mistakes; or that a later Congress might not actually prefer a court's misinterpretation; or that legislative revision is always politically feasible. It is just the possibility of a congressional override that the Supreme Court has deemed important. That possibility, and the consequent force this adds to stare decisis, pertain as well to the federal courts of appeals. Statutes overriding interpretations rendered by the inferior federal courts are not uncommon. Professor Eskridge cites 220 lower federal court decisions during the same period that met this fate. Id.
The federal appellate courts, however, are obviously not in the same position as the Supreme Court. We do not have the last judicial word on the meaning of legislation. Our statutory interpretations are subject to correction, not only by Congress, but also by the Supreme Court. Before Supreme Court review or congressional action, disagreements among the courts of appeals may develop. There is evidence that the extent of unresolved conflicts is considerable. A. Hellman, Unresolved Circuit Conflicts: The Nature and Scope of the Problem, at v (Final Report, Phase I, Dec. 1991) (prepared pursuant to Congress’ request in section 302 of the Judicial Improvements Act of 1990, Pub.L. No. 101-650,104 Stat. 5089). This seems inevitable. We now have potentially more than 6,000 different panels from thirteen circuits handing down tens of thousands of decisions each year.* Yet, in theory at least, the federal courts constitute one judicial system; to use Hamilton’s phrase, when it comes to applying federal law we are parts of “ONE WHOLE.” The Federalist No. 82, at 556 (A. Hamilton) (J. Cooke ed. 1961). I therefore believe that when there is a conflict among the circuits over the construction of a statute, a federal appellate court — sitting en banc — should reexamine its position, rather than simply adhere to circuit precedent, right or wrong. Cf. D.C.Cir.R. 15(a)(c). This reason for relaxing the force of stare decisis does not, however, apply here. As Judge Buckley’s opinion for the court points out, seven other circuits have adopted the National Parks test; none has rejected it. We also are not faced today with the question of how much weight an en banc court should give to a recent ruling, made by a single panel, not yet interpreted, and applied by several subsequent panels.
Yet there is considerable space, I think, between overruling a decision and pressing forward with it for all it is worth. The factors recited above, and in the opinion of the court, counsel against the former. But nothing in the doctrine of stare decisis requires a court to go further. The risks of doing so have been well-stated by Justice Scalia, and his description deserves full quotation:
Once ... the scope of a statute [is expanded] beyond a reasonable interpretation of the language, [later cases] ... *882press[ ] the rationale of that expansion to the limits of its logic. And the Court, having already sanctioned a point of departure that is genuinely not to be found within the language of the statute, finds itself cut off from that authoritative source of the law, and ends up construing not the statute but its own construction. Applied to an erroneous point of departure, the logical reasoning that is ordinarily the mechanism of judicial adherence to the rule of law perversely carries the Court further and further from the meaning of the statute. Some distance down that path, however, there comes a point at which a later incremental step, again rational in itself, leads to a result so far removed from the statute that obedience to text must overcome fidelity to logic.
NLRB v. International Bhd. of Elec. Workers, 481 U.S. 573, 597-98, 107 S.Ct. 2002, 2016, 95 L.Ed.2d 557 (1987) (Scalia, J., concurring); see also Critical Mass Energy Project v. NRC, 830 F.2d 278, 287-88 (D.C.Cir.1987) (Buckley, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
The court’s opinion today halts our progression down the path, and ensures that future decisions about these issues will be guided primarily by reference to the Act, not to National Parks. For that reason, and out of respect for the doctrine of stare decisis, I join the opinion of the court.
RUTH BADER GINSBURG, Circuit Judge, joined by MIKVA, Chief Judge, WALD and HARRY T. EDWARDS, Circuit Judges, dissenting from the court’s opinion:
Our prior dispositions in this case closely followed and “[d]id not expand upon National Parks [and Conservation Ass’n v. Morton, 498 F.2d 765 (D.C.Cir.1974) ].” Critical Mass Energy Project v. NRC, 931 F.2d 939, 948 (D.C.Cir.1991) (Randolph, J., concurring). Recognizing, as does the full court, that stare decisis is wise policy, particularly in cases of this sort, and that appellees have not shown cause to dislodge that sound policy, see majority opinion (maj. op.) at 875-77, I would preserve our National Parks precedent.
The court, instead, removes from the governance of National Parks all cases in which commercial or financial information is given to the Government voluntarily. The cutback substantially revises the law of this circuit and diminishes as well sister circuit case law patterned on our National Parks decision. Stare decisis, though pro-tractedly addressed, has not been appropriately observed in today’s decision. Nor has the guiding purpose of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) — to shed light on an agency’s performance of its statutory duties — been well served by the en banc disposition. I therefore dissent from the court’s FOIA and precedent unsettling judgment and opinion.
I.
The court in National Parks sought to define “confidential” as that word is used in FOIA exemption 4, covering
... commercial or financial information obtained from a person and ... confidential. ...
5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(4). The definition that National Parks opinion author Judge Tamm developed for the court was designed to control both information voluntarily submitted and information a person is obliged to supply to the Government. At the outset of the opinion, Judge Tamm indicated that defining “confidential” for exemption 4 purposes was the court’s first task, and he reaffirmed what circuit precedent already made clear: “the test for confidentiality is an objective one”; objectivity requires the court to press beyond the inquiry “[wjhether particular information would customarily be disclosed to the public by the person from whom it was obtained.” National Parks, 498 F.2d at 766, 767;1 see Bristol-Myers Co. v. FTC, 424 *883F.2d 935, 938 (D.C.Cir.) (instructing that FOIA’s “statutory scheme does not permit a bare claim of confidentiality to immunize agency files from scrutiny,” and stressing district court’s responsibility, in the first instance, to insure that exemption 4 “is strictly construed in light of the legislative intent”), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 824, 91 S.Ct. 46, 27 L.Ed.2d 52 (1970).
The court today asserts that its revision of the National Parks test “is objective.” Maj. op. at 879. That is true to the extent that my colleagues demand more than the stampmark “Confidential” to shield a document: the provider must have a confidentiality custom and the agency must prove that custom.2 But the court’s slackened test is not “objective” in the sense vital to Judge Tamm’s reasoning in National Parks. No longer is there to be an independent judicial eheck on the reasonableness of the provider’s custom and the consonance of that custom with the purposes of exemption 4 and of the Act of which the exemption is part. To the extent that the court allows providers to render categories of information confidential merely by withholding them from the public long enough to show a custom, the revised test is fairly typed “subjective” and substantially departs from National Parks.
Judge Tamm’s opinion in National Parks recounts the relevant legislative history first to explain why Congress provided an exemption for “commercial” material, and next to describe what it takes to warrant classification of “commercial” material as “confidential.” 498 F.2d at 669-70. Regarding the former, Congress recognized “a twofold justification for the exemption of commercial material: (1) encouraging cooperation by those who are not obliged to provide information to the government and (2) protecting the rights of those who must.” Id. at 769. Concerning the key word “confidential,” National Parks summarizes:
[Commercial or financial matter is “confidential” for purposes of [exemption 4] if disclosure of the information is likely to have either of the following effects: (1) to impair the Government’s ability to obtain necessary information in the future; or (2) to cause substantial harm to the competitive position of the person from whom the information was obtained.
Id. at 770 (footnote omitted). The court left open the possibility that “other governmental interests” might also be protected by the exemption. See id. at 770 n. 17 (mentioning “problems of compliance and program effectiveness”); see also maj. op. at 878-79.
Not until he had thus summarized alternative tests for determining when commercial matter is “confidential,” without distinguishing between voluntary and required submissions, did Judge Tamm turn to the application of his formula to the information at issue in National Parks: financial records (including audits and annual financial statements) of companies operating concessions in national parks. Judge Tamm then stated: “Since the concession-ers are required to provide th[e] financial information to the [Park Service], there is presumably no danger that public disclosure will impair the ability of the Government to obtain this information in the future.” 498 F.2d at 770 (emphasis in original).3 This statement strongly suggests *884that the “impairment” test, given equal billing by the National Parks court, was comprehended by that court as having its principal utility in cases of information voluntarily submitted.
National Parks has by now figured as the leading decision in many cases in which information was furnished to the Government voluntarily. See, e.g., 9 to 5 Organization for Women Office Workers v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 721 F.2d 1 (1st Cir.1983) (remanding for district court determination whether exemption 4 shields information); Wiley Rein & Fielding v. U.S. Dep’t of Commerce, 782 F.Supp. 675 (D.D.C.1992) (holding documents unprotected by exemption 4); Durnan v. U.S. Dep’t of Commerce, 777 F.Supp. 965 (D.D.C.1991) (holding information exempt); Klayman & Gurley v. U.S. Dep’t of Commerce, 1990 WL 446704, 1990 U.S.Dist. LEXIS 4329 (D.D.C. Apr. 17, 1990) (holding information exempt); Teich v. FDA, 751 F.Supp. 243 (D.D.C.1990) (holding information nonexempt); ISC Group, Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Defense, 1989 WL 168858, 1989 U.S.Dist. LEXIS 5763, 35 Cont.Cas.Fed. (CCH) 1175,-667 (D.D.C. May 22,1989) (holding information exempt). In no decision prior to today’s ruling has any court suggested that the National Parks definition of “confidential” is good for required submissions only.4 In short, the court's asserted "obedience” to stare decisis, see maj. op. at 875, is a “sometimes thing.”
II.
The surgery done on National Parks might have been less questionable had that decision fundamentally misunderstood the legislative will or generated disagreement among the circuits. But the court forthrightly acknowledges that no such flaw marred National Parks. See maj. op. at 876-77. Thus the court’s new exemption 4 test, devised for voluntary submissions, is all the more difficult to reconcile with Congress’ unmistakably clear direction: “The mandate of the FOIA calls for broad disclosure of Government records,” CIA v. Sims, 471 U.S. 159, 166, 105 S.Ct. 1881, 1886, 85 L.Ed.2d 173 (1985) (footnote omitted), and “for this reason ... FOIA exemptions are to be narrowly construed.” Dep’t of Justice v. Julian, 486 U.S. 1, 8, 108 S.Ct. 1606, 1611, 100 L.Ed.2d 1 (1988); see Vaughn v. Rosen, 484 F.2d 820, 823 (D.C.Cir.1973) (“exemptions from disclosure must be construed narrowly, in such a way as to provide the maximum access consonant with the overall purpose of the Act”) (footnote omitted), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 977, 94 S.Ct. 1564, 39 L.Ed.2d 873 (1974); see also Washington Post Co. v. HHS, 865 F.2d 320, 324 (D.C.Cir.1989) (“Like all FOIA exemptions, exemption 4 is to be read narrowly in light of the dominant disclosure motif expressed in the statute.”).
Under the test announced today, “financial or commercial information provided to *885the Government on a voluntary basis is ‘confidential’ for the purpose of Exemption 4 if it is of a kind that would customarily not be released to the public by the person from whom it was obtained.” Maj. op. at 879. No longer is it necessary to show in each case “how disclosure will significantly harm some relevant private or governmental interest.” See 9 to 5 Organization for Women Office Workers, 721 F.2d at 12 (Breyer, J., dissenting). Henceforth, in this circuit, it will do for an agency official to agree with the submitter’s ascription of confidential status to the information. There will be no objective check on, no judicial review alert to, “the temptation of government and business officials to follow the path of least resistance and say ‘confidential’ whenever they seek to satisfy the government’s vast information needs.” Id.5 Under the regime replacing National Parks, “the exemption [will] expand beyond what Congress intended.” Id.
But the court sees virtue in a categorical rule, see maj. op. at 879, and such rules do have a place in FOIA’s domain. “Categorical balancing” won favor, for example, in U.S. Dep’t of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 489 U.S. 749, 779, 109 S.Ct. 1468, 1485, 103 L.Ed.2d 774 (1989). The Court there held criminal rap sheets categorically exempt from disclosure under exemption 7(C) because the “basic policy” of FOIA, which “focuses on the citizens’ right to be informed about ‘what their government is up to’ ... is not fostered by disclosure of information about private citizens that is accumulated in various governmental files but that reveals little or nothing about an agency’s own conduct.” Id. at 773, 109 S.Ct. at 1481. Similarly, the Court ruled in NLRB v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U.S. 214, 98 S.Ct. 2311, 57 L.Ed.2d 159 (1978), that witness statements in pending unfair labor practice proceedings are categorically exempt from pre-hearing disclosure under exemption 7(A) because the “basic purpose of FOIA ... to ensure an informed citizenry” would not “be defeated by deferring disclosure until after the Government ha[d] ‘presented its case in court.’ ” Id. at 242, 98 S.Ct. at 2327 (footnotes and citations omitted).
A categorical approach, however, is not in order across the board under FOIA, without regard to the character of the information requested. Such an automatic approach is not suitable for judging the wide range of cases presenting contests under exemption 4. That was Judge Tamm’s essential point in National Parks. This case is illustrative.
Critical Mass Energy Project seeks access to comprehensive reports; prepared by a consortium comprised of the entire nuclear utility industry, concerning the causes and potential hazards of “significant” safety-related events at nuclear power plants. See Critical Mass Energy Project v. NRC, 830 F.2d 278, 279-80 (D.C.Cir.1987). Disclosure of these reports, and the response of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to the information contained in them, would undoubtedly shed light on the character and adequacy of the Commission’s pursuit of its mission to “encourage ... the development and utilization of [nuclear] energy for peaceful purposes to the maximum extent consistent ... with the health and safety of the public.” 42 U.S.C. § 2013(d). The FOIA request we face seeks no “information about private citizens that happens to be in the warehouse of the Government”; disclosure is sought “not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester,” but to advance public understanding of the nature and quality of the NRC’s oversight operations or activities. See Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 489 U.S. at 774, 775, 109 S.Ct. at 1482 (emphasis in original) (internal quotation omitted). “[T]he public interest that the FOIA was enacted to serve,” see id. at 775, 109 S.Ct. at 1482, is thus centrally at stake.
FOIA creates “a judicially enforceable public right to secure ... information from possibly unwilling official hands.” EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. 73, 80, 93 S.Ct. 827, 832, 35 *886L.Ed.2d 119 (1965). Congress understood that it is no
easy task to balance the opposing interests, but it is not an impossible one either. It is not necessary to conclude that to protect one of the interests, the other must, of necessity, either be abrogated or substantially subordinated. Success lies in providing a workable formula which encompasses, balances, and protects all interests, yet places emphasis on the fullest responsible disclosure.
S.Rep. No. 813, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. 3 (1965) (quoted in EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. at 80 n. 6, 93 S.Ct. at 832 n. 6). The National Parks formulation fits the congressional design better than the virtual abandonment of federal court scrutiny approved by the court today for Government withholding of commercial or financial materials submitted voluntarily. For that reason, I dissent from the court’s decision to overrule, in significant measure, our National Parks precedent.

 The numbers play out as follows:
CIRCUIT NUMBER OF JUDGES POSSIBLE PANELS
D.C. Cir. 12 220
1st Cir. 6 20
2d Cir. 13 286
3d Cir. 14 364
4th Cir. 15 455
5th Cir. 17 680
6th Cir. 16 560
7th Cir. 11 165
8th Cir. 11 165
9th Cir. 28 3,276
10th Cir. 12 220
11th Cir. 12 220
Fed. Cir. 12 220
TOTAL 179 6,851
The tally uses the number of judges currently authorized by Congress for each circuit. See 28 U.S.C. § 44.

. Later in the National Parks opinion, Judge Tamm restated:
The district court concluded that th[e] information [requested] was of the kind "that would not generally be made available for public perusal.” ... [W]e do not think that, by itself, ... supports application of the finan*883cial information exemption. The district court must also inquire into the possibility that disclosure will harm legitimate private or governmental interests in secrecy.
498 F.2d at 770 (footnote omitted).

. The court leaves unaddressed whether, as here, the custom must prevail in the industry or may be simply the provider’s unique practice. Cf. H.R.Rep. No. 95-1382, 95th Cong., 2d Sess. 18 (1978) (rejecting as clearly inappropriate the withholding of “all information, no matter how innocuous, submitted by a corporation with a blanket policy of refusing all public requests for information”).

. We have recognized and described, more recently, a qualitative aspect to the impairment test formulated in National Parks. Even when the Government requires submission of information, it may justify nondisclosure under exemption 4 by showing that the quality or reliability of the material provided would be so diminished by the prospect of public disclosure as to “seriously impair[ ]” the Government’s information-gathering ability. See Washington Post Co. v. HNS, 865 F.2d 320, 325-28 (D.C.Cir.1989); maj. op. at 878.

. The court gives less than the full picture when it asserts that “we know of no case considered by this court in the past, other than Critical Mass I and II, that would have been decided differently had [the new] test been applied." Maj. op. at 879 (emphasis added). But cf. 9 to 5 Organization for Women Office Workers v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 721 F.2d 1 (1st Cir.1983). The fact is, we have had rather few cases concerning voluntarily submitted information. In light of today’s decision, however, more cases may be headed our way. See, e.g., Teich v. Food and Drug Administration, 751 F.Supp. 243 (D.D.C.1990). In Teich, the FDA maintained that voluntarily submitted animal test results and consumer complaint surveys concerning silicone breast implants were protected from FOIA disclosure by exemption 4. Applying National Parks, the district court first rejected the FDA’s contention that disclosure would impair the government’s ability to gather information:
It may be true that the disclosure of documents submitted voluntarily will impair voluntary cooperation. However, where compelled cooperation will obtain precisely the same results as voluntary cooperation, an impairment claim cannot be countenanced.
Id. at 251. The Teich court next rejected the FDA's argument that release of the studies would cause the provider competitive injury. Id. at 253. The documents sought in Teich reflected unfavorably upon the submitter’s product — just the sort of information a company would not customarily disclose. The National Parks test, as framed by Judge Tamm, may have discouraged an appeal in Teich; today's decision invites insistent appeal under exemption 4 in similar cases.

. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has conceded that it has "ample statutory authority ... to compel the production” of the information sought here. Critical Mass Energy Project v. NRC, 830 F.2d 278, 284-85 (D.C.Cir.1987).