McBurney v. Young
The Court unanimously ruled that Virginia's public-records law can lawfully restrict access to state citizens only, rejecting claims that this violates the Constitution's Privileges and Immunities Clause or the rules against states burdening interstate commerce.
The decision means states can keep citizens-only freedom-of-information laws in place, since the right to request public records isn't one of the 'fundamental' rights the Constitution guarantees equally to out-of-staters.
“The state Freedom of Information Act does not regulate commerce in any meaningful sense, but instead provides a service that is related to state citizenship.”
Explaining why Virginia's records law does not implicate the Commerce Clause at all.
How it got here: A federal trial court granted Virginia summary judgment, the Fourth Circuit affirmed, and the Supreme Court took the case to resolve a conflict with a Third Circuit ruling striking down a similar Delaware law.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Mark McBurney, a Rhode Island resident, sought records from Virginia's child-support agency about delays in his case; Roger Hurlbert, a California business owner who obtains property records for clients, sought Henrico County real estate tax records. Both were denied under Virginia's Freedom of Information Act because it only lets Virginia citizens make such requests.
The question before the Court
Can Virginia limit its public-records law to Virginia citizens and turn away requests from people who live in other states?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court held Virginia can limit its Freedom of Information Act to state citizens without violating the Constitution. The Privileges and Immunities Clause only protects "fundamental" rights, and the Court found none of the rights the challengers pointed to — earning a living, owning property, accessing courts, or getting government records generally — were actually burdened in a way that clause forbids, especially since Virginia offered other ways to get most of the same information.
The Court also rejected the dormant Commerce Clause challenge, reasoning that the records law doesn't regulate or burden any interstate market; it simply provides a government service to the people who fund it. Because the law wasn't designed to give Virginians an unfair economic edge over outsiders, and adequate alternative paths to the records existed, both constitutional claims failed and the lower court's ruling for Virginia was affirmed.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
People who live outside a state, including researchers, title companies, and businesses that rely on public records, may still be turned away from citizens-only records requests in Virginia and similar states. States keep flexibility to design public-records laws around their own taxpayers without facing a constitutional challenge from out-of-state requesters.
What changes now
This is a final merits decision resolving a circuit split, so the Fourth Circuit's ruling stands and Virginia's citizens-only FOIA provision remains in effect. Other states with similar citizens-only public-records laws can continue to enforce them, since the Court has now settled that such distinctions don't violate the Constitution, superseding the conflicting Third Circuit ruling on Delaware's law.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether every possible restriction favoring citizens over nonresidents in every context is constitutional — only that this particular records-access distinction, given Virginia's alternative avenues for obtaining most of the same information, does not violate the Constitution.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas joined the Court's opinion in full but wrote separately to restate his long-standing view that the dormant Commerce Clause has no basis in the Constitution's text, makes little practical sense, and cannot properly be used to strike down state laws, even though he agreed the majority correctly applied existing precedent here.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the Privileges and Immunities Clause framework, which protects out-of-state citizens only against state laws burdening 'fundamental' rights, not just any distinction between residents and nonresidents.
- On Hurlbert's claim that the law hurt his ability to earn a living pulling property records for clients, the Court found the law lacked the protectionist purpose that has doomed similar laws in the past; Virginia's FOIA was designed to let citizens monitor their own government and have citizens fund its costs, not to give Virginians a business edge.
- On Hurlbert's claim about the right to own and transfer property, the Court found no real burden because Virginia already makes deeds, liens, and mortgage records open to everyone through the circuit court clerk's office, and tax assessment records are typically posted online anyway.
- On McBurney's claim about access to courts, the Court applied the standard that nonresidents need only 'reasonable and adequate' court access, not identical treatment, and found ordinary discovery tools and a separate state records law (which McBurney himself successfully used) provided that access.
- The Court declined to recognize a broad, freestanding right to equal access to government records as 'fundamental,' noting no such right existed in common law history or is essential to national unity.
- On the dormant Commerce Clause claim, the Court reasoned that Virginia's law doesn't regulate or burden an interstate market at all, but simply creates a government service for its own citizens, and even if commerce analysis applied, a state may limit benefits from a program it created to those who fund it.