Case Detail
| Case Title | SAMAHON v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | Eastern District of Pennsylvania | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Philadelphia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 2:2013cv06462 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2013-11-06 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2015-08-31 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | HONORABLE JOEL H. SLOMSKY | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | TUAN SAMAHON | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Description | Samahon, a law professor at Villanova, submitted a request for an unredacted copy of a 2004 Office of Legal Counsel memo concerning recess appointments. The "Goldsmith" memo was referenced in a 2012 Office of Legal Counsel known as the "Seitz" memo, which was publicly disclosed in litigation brought after President Obama made several recess appointments while the Senate was in pro forma session. The Goldsmith memo had already been released to New York Times reporter Charlie Savage in redacted form and in response to Samahon's request, the Justice Department declined to provide an unredacted copy claiming the redactions were proper under Exemption 5, citing both the deliberative process privilege and the attorney-client privilege. Samahon appealed and DOJ affirmed the original denial. He then filed suit. Complaint issues: waiver by adoption of memo's conclusions in subsequent litigatio, arbitrary and capricious behavior, improper withholding, disclosure of unredacted document to plaintiff and U.S. Supreme, attorney's fees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Appeal | Third Circuit 15-3669 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Opinion/Order [30] Opinion/Order [31] FOIA Project Annotation: A federal court in Pennsylvania has ruled that two memos prepared by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel concerning the President's constitutional authority to make recess appointments are protected by Exemption 5 (privileges) and that Tuan Samahon has failed to show that the privileges were waived when both memos were referred to in the subsequent 2012 OLC Seitz Memorandum, which was publicly disclosed at the time President Barack Obama decided to make recess appointments even though the Senate was holding pro forma sessions to prevent such appointments. Samahon, a law professor at Villanova researching federal separation of powers issues, requested the 2004 memo prepared by Jack Goldsmith and a 2009 file memorandum prepared by John Elwood. OLC denied Samahon's request, citing a combination of the deliberative process privilege, the attorney-client privilege, and the presidential communications privilege to deny the request. Samahon argued that the privileges were waived by the references to the two memos in the Seitz Memorandum as well as subsequent references by then-Press Secretary Jay Carney pertaining to the government's acceptance of the Seitz Memorandum's conclusions and, further, cites to the two memos in the government's brief defending Obama's decision at the Supreme Court. Judge Joel Slomsky noted that whether the two memos had either been adopted or incorporated by reference or constituted the working law of the agency depended on whether the Seitz Memorandum fell into either of those waivers of the privileges. DOJ argued that since OLC did not have final policymaking powers its opinions could not be considered final opinions for purposes of adoption. But Slomsky pointed out that "although the OLC is not an agency policymaker and its memoranda are not binding on those who request it, an OLC memorandum is still final when it serves as the OLC's last word on the subject matter that was provided to the decisionmaker who requested it. Here, the Seitz Memorandum was in fact the last word by the OLC on the subject of recess appointments during pro forma sessions of the Senate." Slomsky rejected Samahon's claim that Carney's reference to the Seitz Memorandum during a press conference constituted a waiver by adoption. Slomsky observed that "Carney's reference to the Seitz Memorandum was in response to a reporter's question as to whether the Administration was prepared for litigation. It was not a comment on the quality of the advice contained therein." Although there were several citations to the Seitz Memorandum in the government's brief defending Obama's recess appointments, Slomsky found they did not constitute adoption. He also noted that "because the NLRB [the agency defending the suit] was not a 'decisionmaker' behind the recess appointments, which was the President, its adoption of the analysis is not binding on President Obama and is not relevant to whether the Obama Administration make an adoption of the reasoning of the Seitz Memorandum." He indicated that "because the Court holds in this case that the Obama Administration did not expressly adopt the reasoning of the Seitz Memorandum, it would be illogical to find that by association, the Administration expressly adopted the reasoning of the Goldsmith and Elwood Memoranda cited therein." Slomsky found that the Goldmith memo was not subject to segregability because it was protected by the presidential communications privilege. But because the government claimed only the deliberative process privilege and attorney-client privilege to withhold the Elwood memo, Slomsky indicated he would conduct an in camera review to determine if it contained any segregable portions.
Issues: Exemption 5 - Privileges, Exemption 5 - Privileges - Waiver of privilege | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| User-contributed Documents | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Docket Events (Hide) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
