Court Opinion

ID: 9475080
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:16:59.019832+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:30.157990
License: Public Domain

STARR, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. In my view, the panel opinion in Washington Post I quite clearly invited the Government to assert an Exemption 4 “privilege” claim. The specific situation at hand presents precisely the kind of “extraordinary circumstances” that justify an exception to the general rule requiring the Government to assert all exemptions before appeal to this court. See, e.g., Ryan v. Department of Justice, 617 F.2d 781, 792 (D.C.Cir.1980).
The majority concedes, as it must, that Washington Post I invited the Government’s claim of privilege. The relevant portion of that opinion began in the following way:
The remaining issue is whether the list of financial interests is “privileged or confidential.” The Government has not asserted that Form 474 is “privileged” within the meaning of Exemption 4. We are puzzled as to why not____
690 F.2d at 267 (footnote omitted). With this introduction, the opinion went on to provide several paragraphs of guidance on the privilege prong of the exemption, “in case the issue is raised on remand. ” Id. (emphasis added). I do not see how these instructions could reasonably be read as anything less than a direction that the District Court consider the merits of a privilege claim should the Government choose to raise one on remand. To be sure, the District Court might have surmised that we simply had not considered the general rule against raising additional exemption claims on remand. But the District Court’s divination as to our reasons for inviting consideration of the privilege claim is irrelevant. First, I should have thought that this court, like Congress, is to be charged with knowledge of existing law, particular*210ly the law of the circuit. Cf Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U.S. 677, 696-97, 99 S.Ct. 1946, 1957-58, 60 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) (“[I]t is always appropriate to assume that our elected representatives, like other citizens, know the law____”). It is entirely proper for the District Court to act on the modest assumption that we know as much about our law as does Congress and that we fashion our opinions in conformity with that body of law. Second, regardless of the District Court’s view about what assumptions may have animated our court, it is obligated to follow this court’s instructions, especially when our system chooses not to favor the district courts with an opportunity to remand appellate opinions back upstairs for clarification.
The majority nevertheless reverses the District Court on the ground that we are not faced with a risk of compromising national security or sensitive personal information, or with a substantial change in the factual or legal context — situations previously recognized as justifying exceptions to Ryan’s general rule that an exemption claim is waived if not raised in the original District Court proceeding. See Maj.Op. at 208. The majority, with all respect, has adopted an unnecessarily wooden reading of our precedents. Unlike the law of the Medes and Persians, FOIA is a legal arena of unusual flexibility. For example, litigators in federal district court are blissfully free to advance exemptions never contemplated by the experts back home at the agency; the wondrous land of FOIA is a long way from Chenery territory. None of the cases cited by the majority, moreover, suggests that exceptions are available only in the two types of situations that the majority describes. Indeed, the general rule in this circuit is that waiver rules may bend in those “exceptional circumstances ... where injustice might otherwise result.” District of Columbia v. Air Florida, Inc., 750 F.2d 1077, 1085 (D.C.Cir. 1984).
The injustice of the majority’s inflexible application of the waiver rule in the setting before us is manifest. The District Court faithfully followed our opinion in Washington Post I, which the majority now characterizes with beguiling ease as dicta. The parties, in turn, reasonably relied on this court’s opinion in devoting months of their time, at considerable expense, to litigating the Exemption 4 privilege issue. The Post chose to proceed with that litigation, rather than simply resting on its objection that Ryan prohibits new exemption claims from being raised on remand. (Indeed, one member of today’s majority has argued that, as long as an alleged error does not affect “the fairness of the outcome or the court’s jurisdiction over the parties,” a party who fails to rest upon an objection to an error should be deemed to have waived the objection. Conafay v. Wyeth Laboratories, 793 F.2d 350, 355 (D.C.Cir.1986) (Scalia, J., dissenting)).
In my view, the efficiency concerns underlying the Ryan rule were never intended to apply under such circumstances. Ryan itself, by providing for exceptions to the general rule, is a reaffirmation of the judiciary’s commitment to sensible rules that make for the orderly and fair adjudication of FOIA issues. Today’s majority prefers procedural purity to common sense, even though it is this court which beguiled the District Court and the litigators into devoting, some months to indulging in what we now write off as a frolic and detour. We should have greater respect for the judicial process than to turn the relationship between the trial and appellate courts into a shell game. In short, I think it ill behooves us, having invited resolution of the Exemption 4 privilege issue, now to rely on a crabbed interpretation of our own housekeeping rule in order to say that we did not really mean it.