Case Detail
| Case Title | JUDICIAL WATCH, INC. v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2012cv00324 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2012-02-29 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2013-06-24 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | JUDICIAL WATCH, INC. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Opinion/Order [21] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Royce Lamberth has ruled that the California High Speed Rail Authority acted as an agency consultant for purposes of Exemption 5 (privileges) when it worked closely with the Federal Railroad Administration to develop environmental impact statements for California's proposed high-speed rail project that would satisfy both federal and state environmental regulations. After FRA denied records under Exemption 5, Judicial Watch sued, arguing that CHSRA did not qualify as an "intra-agency" consultant under the Supreme Court's ruling in Klamath v. Dept of Interior because its interests were potentially adverse to those of FRA. After a close examination of the D.C. Circuit's pre-Klamath decisions concluding that outside advice could be protected if it aided the agency's deliberative process, Lamberth noted that the Supreme Court in Klamath "held that no matter how far 'intra-agency' can be stretched, it cannot be stretched so far as to include communications with interested parties seeking a government benefit at the expense of other applicants." But he then observed that "while Klamath put an outer bound on the reach of Exemption 5 and mandated that courts give weight to the 'inter-agency or intra-agency' requirement, it does not entirely undermine our circuit's pre-Klamath precedent. I cannot prune our circuit's rule further than the Supreme Court requires. While this Court can no longer merge the threshold requirement with the deliberative process requirement and thereby disregard it, this Court is also not at liberty to give it more than the minimal attention that Klamath demands. Our circuit has allowed any communication that aids the agency's deliberative process to be protected as 'intra-agency.' Klamath only modifies this by requiring that we not protect communications with interested parties seeking a government benefit that is adverse to others seeking that benefit." He indicated that "combining these cases produces the following rule in our circuit: When communications between an agency and a non-agency aid the agency's decision-making process and the non-agency did not have an outside interest in obtaining a benefit that is at the expense of competitors, the communication must be considered an intra-agency communication for purposes of FOIA Exemption 5. When this rule is applied to the case at hand, the court has no other option but to consider the documents 'intra-agency' and protect them from disclosure." Lamberth rejected Judicial Watch's argument that California's interests were adverse to those of FRA. Instead, he pointed out that "here, CHSRA's communications do not directly advocate for the benefits California seeks from the project. They merely assist FRA to meet its obligations under [federal environmental statutes]. Moreover, FRA's deliberative process did not concern whether to grant the benefits California seeks, it concerned what route alternative would leave the least environmental impact." Further, he pointed out that "the benefits CHSRA sought do not appear to have been adverse to other parties' interests. . .[T]here is no evidence of a competitive application procedure and no indication that the communications of which the plaintiff seeks disclosure might somehow have persuaded FRA to choose California as the object of its assistance over other competitors." Lamberth also noted that "CHSRA and FRA's relationship was formed pursuant to statute." He observed that "when a relationship between an agency and a non-agency is presumed under statute, courts have even greater support for protecting the resulting communications."
Issues: Exemption 5 - Privileges - Deliberative process privilege - Deliberative, Exemption 5 - Privileges - Deliberative process privilege - Predecisional | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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