Milner v. Department of Navy
The Court ruled that a Freedom of Information Act exemption for an agency's internal personnel rules and practices does not cover explosives-storage maps and data, rejecting the Navy's argument that the records could be withheld to prevent security risks.
The decision rejects a 30-year-old lower-court approach that let agencies withhold almost any sensitive internal record under this exemption, narrowing it back to matters like employee pay, benefits, and workplace rules.
“Our construction of the statutory language simply makes clear that Low 2 is all of”
The majority's core holding that the exemption covers only human-resources-type records.
How it got here: A federal trial court granted the Navy summary judgment; the Ninth Circuit affirmed using a broad "High 2" reading; the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case given a circuit split.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A Puget Sound resident asked the Navy for records showing minimum safe distances for storing explosives and maps depicting the reach of hypothetical detonations at a naval base on Indian Island, Washington. The Navy refused, saying release would threaten the base's security. The Navy relied on a Freedom of Information Act exemption for records about an agency's "internal personnel rules and practices."
The question before the Court
Could the Navy use a public-records law exemption meant for internal personnel rules to withhold maps and data about how much damage its stored explosives could cause?
The Court's answer
No — the Court ruled that this FOIA exemption only covers records dealing with employee relations and human resources matters, like pay, benefits, and workplace rules, and does not extend to the Navy's explosives-storage maps and data. The word "personnel" in the exemption is the key limiting term, and it means human-resources matters, not any internal rule that happens to guide employees in their jobs.
The Court rejected both of the government's broader readings — one drawn from a 30-year-old lower-court test allowing withholding of any internal material whose release risked "circumvention" of agency rules, and another that would have covered essentially any internal agency rule. Both stripped the word "personnel" of real meaning. The Navy's explosives data therefore cannot be withheld under this exemption, though other FOIA exemptions may still apply.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Federal agencies across the government had relied for decades on a broad reading of this exemption to withhold all sorts of sensitive internal records, not just personnel files. Requesters seeking records the government considers risky to disclose — like this explosives data — will now have an easier time in court, though agencies retain other FOIA exemptions and can still seek new legislation from Congress.
What changes now
The case returns to the lower courts, where the Navy's separate argument that the explosives information is protected under a different FOIA exemption covering law-enforcement records that could endanger someone's safety remains open to litigate. The Navy may also explore withholding the information through classification or other exemptions, and Congress remains free to create a new exemption if it disagrees with the outcome.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether the Navy's explosives data can be withheld under a different exemption for law-enforcement records that could endanger someone's safety — that question stays open for the lower courts on remand. The ruling also does not foreclose the Navy from classifying the information or Congress from creating a new exemption.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Alito
Justice Alito agreed the exemption's text cannot support the broad 'High 2' reading, but wrote separately to highlight the Navy's alternative argument, left open on remand, that the explosives data qualifies for a different exemption covering records compiled for law-enforcement purposes whose release could endanger someone's safety. He argued that 'law enforcement purposes' should be read broadly to include crime-prevention and security functions, not just investigation and prosecution.
Dissent — Justice Breyer
“I would let sleeping legal dogs lie.”Breyer's argument for deferring to three decades of settled lower-court interpretation.
Justice Breyer would have deferred to a 30-year-old D.C. Circuit interpretation that let agencies withhold internal records whose release would risk letting people evade agency rules, arguing that settled, consistently followed lower-court interpretations deserve special weight. He argued this practical approach had worked well, protected sensitive but non-personnel information like building plans and passwords, and that overturning it would force costly readjustment without clear congressional disapproval.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court read the exemption's text closely, focusing on the word "personnel" as the key limiting term. Used as a modifier, "personnel" ordinarily refers to human-resources matters like hiring, benefits, and workplace conditions, not just anything that helps employees do their jobs.
- The Court drew support from a separate FOIA provision, Exemption 6, which protects "personnel...files" — records like an employee's personal history and job evaluations kept by a human-resources office — reasoning that the same word should carry the same meaning within one statute.
- Because FOIA is meant to favor broad public disclosure and its exemptions must be read narrowly — especially this one, which Congress designed to be narrower than a prior, overused internal-management exemption — the Court favored the tightest plausible reading of "personnel rules and practices."
- The Court rejected the government's first alternative, a decades-old lower-court test (sometimes called "High 2") allowing withholding of any predominantly internal material whose release would risk letting people evade agency rules, finding that test disconnected from the statute's actual words and inconsistent with a related 1986 amendment to a different FOIA exemption that would otherwise become pointless.
- The Court also rejected the government's second alternative reading, which would have covered any internal rule that merely helps agency staff perform their duties, because that reading treats "personnel" as meaningless surplus language and would let this exemption swallow up FOIA's other, more specific exemptions.
- Applying its narrow reading, the Court concluded that maps and data showing the force of hypothetical explosions have nothing to do with employee-relations or human-resources rules, so they fall outside the exemption altogether.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Abrogates Crooker v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (670 F. 2d 1051)
Rejects the 30-year-old lower-court 'High 2' test allowing broad withholding of internal agency records.
Reaffirms Department of Air Force v. Rose (425 U. S. 352)
Relies on Rose's core understanding that the exemption targets employee-relations records, while rejecting how lower courts expanded its caveat.