United States Department of Justice v. Tax Analysts
106 L. Ed. 2d 112, 1989 U.S. LEXIS 3137, 492 U.S. 136 (1989)
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Rule of Law:
Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a federal agency must disclose records it has obtained and controls in the legitimate conduct of its duties, even if those records were created by a non-agency entity and are publicly available from another source, unless a specific statutory exemption applies.
Facts:
- The Department of Justice's Tax Division represents the Federal Government in civil tax cases and, in the course of its litigation duties, receives copies of all opinions and orders issued by courts in those cases.
- Tax Analysts, a publisher of a weekly magazine and electronic database on federal taxation, sought to obtain the full text of recent federal court decisions on tax issues.
- Tax Analysts' practice of requesting copies of decisions directly from the various district court clerks proved unsatisfactory approximately 25% of the time, leading to significant delays or non-responses.
- Frustrated with obtaining decisions from the courts, Tax Analysts filed a series of FOIA requests with the Department of Justice for copies of the district court tax opinions and final orders that the Tax Division had recently received.
- The Department of Justice denied these requests, arguing that the court decisions were not Tax Division records and were publicly available from their primary source, the courts themselves.
Procedural Posture:
- Tax Analysts filed suit against the Department of Justice in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to compel disclosure of the requested court decisions.
- The District Court granted the Department's motion to dismiss, holding that the records had not been 'improperly withheld' because they were publicly available from the district courts.
- Tax Analysts appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
- The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the court decisions were 'agency records' that were 'improperly withheld' because public availability is not a FOIA exemption.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari at the request of the Department of Justice.
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Issue:
Does the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) require the Department of Justice to provide copies of federal district court decisions it possesses, even though those decisions are publicly available from the courts that issued them?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice Marshall
Yes. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requires the Department of Justice to provide copies of federal district court decisions it possesses because they qualify as 'agency records' that have been 'improperly withheld.' To be an 'agency record,' a document must be (1) obtained or created by an agency and (2) under the agency's control at the time of the FOIA request. Here, the Department obtained the decisions from the courts and controlled them by maintaining them in its official files for use in its work, such as deciding whether to appeal. The documents were 'withheld' because the Department possessed them and refused to provide them. The withholding was 'improper' because public availability is not one of the nine exclusive exemptions listed in § 552(b) of the FOIA, and an agency cannot justify withholding records that do not fall within a specific exemption.
Dissenting - Justice Blackmun
No. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) should not be interpreted to require the Department of Justice to produce these documents. This result misuses the FOIA, whose purpose is to inform the public about the operations of government, not to serve as a subsidized document-retrieval service for a commercial enterprise. Forcing the Department to produce documents that are already publicly available provides no new insight into government functioning and improperly shifts the business costs of Tax Analysts onto the taxpayers. This outcome could not have been what Congress intended when it enacted the statute.
Analysis:
This decision significantly clarifies the scope of 'agency records' under FOIA, establishing a simple two-part test of 'obtain and control' that focuses on the agency's possession rather than the document's origin. It firmly establishes that the nine statutory exemptions in FOIA are exclusive and that agencies cannot create new, non-statutory justifications for withholding information, such as its public availability elsewhere. The ruling strengthens FOIA as a tool for accessing information held by the government by preventing agencies from deflecting requests by directing requesters on a 'scavenger expedition' for documents the agency already possesses. It solidifies the principle that an agency's disclosure duty is triggered by its possession and control of a record, not by its unique access to it.
