McBurney v. Young

185 L. Ed. 2d 758, 24 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 171, 569 U.S. 221, 133 S. Ct. 1709, 2013 WL 1788080, 2013 U.S. LEXIS 3317, 81 U.S.L.W. 4276, 41 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 1669
CourtSupreme Court of the United States
DecidedApril 29, 2013
Docket12–17.
StatusPublished
Cited by472 cases

This text of 185 L. Ed. 2d 758 (McBurney v. Young) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of the United States primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McBurney v. Young, 185 L. Ed. 2d 758, 24 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 171, 569 U.S. 221, 133 S. Ct. 1709, 2013 WL 1788080, 2013 U.S. LEXIS 3317, 81 U.S.L.W. 4276, 41 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 1669 (U.S. 2013).

Opinions

Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court.

*224In this case, we must decide whether the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, Va.Code Ann. § 2.2-3700 et seq. , violates either the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV of the Constitution or the dormant Commerce Clause. The Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), provides that "all public records shall be open to inspection and copying by any citizens of the Commonwealth," but it grants no such right to non-Virginians. § 2.2-3704(A) (Lexis 2011).

Petitioners, who are citizens of other States, unsuccessfully sought information under the Act and then brought this constitutional challenge. We hold, however, that petitioners' constitutional rights were not violated. By means other than the state FOIA, Virginia made available to petitioners most of the information that they sought, and the Commonwealth's refusal to furnish the additional information did not abridge any constitutionally protected privilege or immunity. Nor did Virginia violate the dormant Commerce Clause. 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. For these reasons, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals rejecting petitioners' constitutional claims.

I

Petitioners Mark J. McBurney and Roger W. Hurlbert are citizens of Rhode Island and California respectively. McBurney and Hurlbert each requested documents under the Virginia FOIA, but their requests were denied because of their citizenship.

McBurney is a former resident of Virginia whose ex-wife is a Virginia citizen. After his ex-wife defaulted on her child support obligations, McBurney asked the Commonwealth's *225Division of Child Support Enforcement to file a petition for child support on his behalf. The agency complied, but only after a 9-month delay. McBurney attributes that delay to agency error and says that it cost him nine months of child support. To ascertain the reason for the agency's delay, McBurney *1714filed a Virginia FOIA request seeking "all emails, notes, files, memos, reports, letters, policies, [and] opinions" pertaining to his family, along with all documents "regarding [his] application for child support" and all documents pertaining to the handling of child support claims like his. App. in No. 11-1099(CA4), p. 39A. The agency denied McBurney's request on the ground that he was not a Virginia citizen. McBurney later requested the same documents under Virginia's Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act, Va.Code Ann. § 2.2-3800 et seq. , and through that request he received most of the information he had sought that pertained specifically to his own case. He did not, however, receive any general policy information about how the agency handled claims like his.

Hurlbert is the sole proprietor of Sage Information Services, a business that requests real estate tax records on clients' behalf from state and local governments across the United States. In 2008, Hurlbert was hired by a land/title company to obtain real estate tax records for properties in Henrico County, Virginia. He filed a Virginia FOIA request for the documents with the Henrico County Real Estate Assessor's Office, but his request was denied because he was not a Virginia citizen.

Petitioners filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief for violations of the Privileges and Immunities Clause and, in Hurlbert's case, the dormant Commerce Clause. The District Court granted Virginia's motion for summary judgment, McBurney v. Cuccinelli, 780 F.Supp.2d 439 (E.D.Va.2011), and the Court of Appeals affirmed, 667 F.3d 454 (C.A.4 2012).

*226Like Virginia, several other States have enacted freedom of information laws that are available only to their citizens. See, e.g., Ala.Code § 36-12-40 (2012 Cum.Supp.); Ark.Code Ann. § 25-19-105 (2011 Supp.); Del.Code Ann., Tit. 29, § 10003 (2012 Supp.); Mo.Rev.Stat. § 109.180 (2012) ; N.H.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 91-A:4 (West 2012) ; N.J. Stat. Ann. § 47:1A-1 (West 2003) ; Tenn.Code Ann. § 10-7-503 (2012). In Lee v. Minner, 458 F.3d 194 (2006), the Third Circuit held that this feature of Delaware's FOIA violated the Privileges and Immunities Clause. We granted certiorari to resolve this conflict. 568 U.S. ----, 133 S.Ct. 421, 184 L.Ed.2d 252 (2012).

II

Under the Privileges and Immunities Clause, "[t]he Citizens of each State [are] entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States." U.S. Const., Art. IV, § 2, cl. 1. We have said that "[t]he object of the Privileges and Immunities Clause is to 'strongly ... constitute the citizens of the United States [as] one people,' by 'plac[ing] the citizens of each State upon the same footing with citizens of other States, so far as the advantages resulting from citizenship in those States are concerned.' " Lunding v. New York Tax Appeals Tribunal, 522 U.S. 287, 296, 118 S.Ct. 766, 139 L.Ed.2d 717 (1998) (quoting Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168, 180, 19 L.Ed. 357 (1869) ). This does not mean, we have cautioned, that "state citizenship or residency may never be used by a State to distinguish among persons." Baldwin v. Fish and Game Comm'n of Mont., 436 U.S. 371

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185 L. Ed. 2d 758, 24 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 171, 569 U.S. 221, 133 S. Ct. 1709, 2013 WL 1788080, 2013 U.S. LEXIS 3317, 81 U.S.L.W. 4276, 41 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 1669, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcburney-v-young-scotus-2013.