United States Department of Justice v. Tax Analysts

Background

The dispute involved the Justice Department’s Tax Division and Tax Analysts, a publisher of Tax Notes and an electronic tax database. The Tax Division represents the Government in most civil tax cases and keeps copies of district court opinions in official case files. Tax Analysts asked the Department for copies of those district-court tax opinions after its own requests to court clerks often failed. The Department denied the requests, a district court dismissed the suit, the Court of Appeals ordered disclosure, and the Supreme Court reviewed the case.

Reasoning

The central question was whether the Freedom of Information Act requires the Department to provide copies of district court decisions it has received. The Court applied earlier FOIA decisions and concluded these opinions are "agency records" because the Department had obtained and controlled them. The Court held that refusing the requests was a "withholding" and that it was "improper" because no FOIA exemption covered the opinions. The Court rejected the Department’s arguments that public availability elsewhere or other statutes and court rules excused disclosure.

Real world impact

The decision means the Department must make nonexempt district court tax opinions in its files available to requesters and may satisfy this duty by providing reasonable forms of access, such as copying in a public reference facility. The Court limited its remedy to those opinions Tax Analysts could not obtain from clerks — about a quarter of the originally sought decisions. Agencies can no longer simply point to outside public sources to avoid FOIA disclosure.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Blackmun dissented, warning that a commercial publisher’s access imposes costs on taxpayers and stretches FOIA beyond Congress’s intent. Justice White concurred in the judgment.