Court Opinion

ID: 9427265
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:20:14.348615+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:05.703204
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stevens,
with whom The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Rehnquist join, concurring.
The “act of meddling in” a process is one of Webster’s accepted definitions of the word “interference.”* A statute that authorized discovery greater than that available under the rules normally applicable to an enforcement proceeding would “interfere” with the proceeding in that sense. The Court quite correctly holds that the Freedom of Information Act does not authorize any such interference in Labor Board enforcement proceedings. Its rationale applies equally to any enforcement proceeding. On that understanding, I join the opinion.

One of the definitions of “interference” is “the act of meddling in or hampering an activity or process.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1178 (1961).