Yanofsky v. U.S. Dep't of Commerce

306 F. Supp. 3d 292
CourtCourt of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
DecidedMarch 30, 2018
DocketNo. 16–cv–00951 (KBJ)
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 306 F. Supp. 3d 292 (Yanofsky v. U.S. Dep't of Commerce) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Yanofsky v. U.S. Dep't of Commerce, 306 F. Supp. 3d 292 (D.C. Cir. 2018).

Opinion

KETANJI BROWN JACKSON, United States District Judge

Because the information and records that an agency possesses rightfully belong to the public, one of the key commitments underlying the Freedom of Information Act ("the FOIA"), 5 U.S.C. § 552, is the principle that the federal government should not profit from its dissemination of documents in response to FOIA requests. See H.R. Rep. No. 99-560, at 26 (1986) (explaining that the FOIA reflects "[t]he policy of providing government documents at a price based on the cost of dissemination"). The FOIA accordingly contains an express provision that permits agencies to charge FOIA requesters only those fees that are reasonably necessary to recoup the funds that the government spends on searching for, duplicating, and reviewing responsive documents. See *2945 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A)(ii). Significantly for present purposes, however, the statute also contains a provision that clarifies that the FOIA's fee-setting prescriptions do not supersede "a statute specifically providing for setting the level of fees for particular types of records." Id. § 552(a)(4)(A)(vi).

The parties in the instant case are engaged in a pitched battle over whether or not Congress intended the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961 ("the MECEA"), 22 U.S.C. §§ 2451, et seq. , and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016 ("the Appropriations Act"), Pub L. No. 114-113, § 9(B), 129 Stat. 2242, 2287 (2015) to displace the standard FOIA fee-setting requirements by authorizing an agency practice that allows the Department of Commerce (DOC") to charge thousands of dollars for certain data files. Plaintiff David Yanofsky filed the instant action after he received a bill for $173,775 in connection with a FOIA request that he submitted to the DOC for information about the number of visitors and international flights to the United States. (See Def.'s Resp. to Pl.'s Statement of Material Facts as to Which There Is No Genuine Issue ("Consol. SUMF Part II"), ECF No. 23-1, ¶ 70.) The DOC maintains that it regularly disseminates such information as part of a subscription-based program that has many institutional clients, and that the agency properly "collects, retains, and expends user fees pursuant to delegated authority under the [MECEA] as authorized in annual appropriations acts." (Def.'s Mot. for Summ. J. ("Def.'s Mot."), ECF No. 20, ¶ 5.) Yanofsky's five-count complaint claims that the DOC "has unlawfully withheld the requested records by, inter alia , unlawfully denying [Yanofsky's] request for a fee waiver and informing [him] that he would have to purchase the requested records" at a price that is "far in excess of the fees [the DOC] is permitted to charge under the FOIA." (Compl., ECF No. 1, ¶ 2.)

Before this Court at present are the parties' cross-motions for summary judgment (see Def.'s Mot.; Pl.'s. Mem. in Opp'n to Def.'s Mot. for Summ. J. and in Supp. of Pl.'s Mot. for Summ. J. ("Pl.'s Mot."), ECF No. 21-1), which are fully briefed and ripe for decision (see Reply Mem. in Further Supp. of Def.'s Mot. for Summ. J. and in Opp'n to Pl.'s Mot. for Summ J. ("Def.'s Reply"), ECF No. 23; Reply Mem. in Supp. of Pl.'s Mot. for Summ. J. ("Pl.'s Reply"), ECF No. 25). The parties address three related issues in these motions: (1) whether the DOC should be permitted to contend that the MECEA and the Appropriations Act displace the FOIA's fee-setting provisions in the instant proceedings, when the agency did not rely on those statutes in the administrative proceedings below; (2) whether the MECEA and the Appropriations Act together supersede the FOIA's fee-setting provisions; and (3) whether those statutes also displace the FOIA's fee-waiver provisions.

For the reasons explained below, this Court agrees with the DOC that the agency can argue that the MECEA and the Appropriations Act constitute superseding fee statutes despite not doing so in its administrative proceedings, but given that the MECEA and the Appropriations Act neither identify a "particular type[ ] of records" nor "set [a] level of fees[,]" 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A)(vi), this Court does not find this argument persuasive. And Oglesby v. United States Department of the Army , 79 F.3d 1172 (D.C. Cir. 1996), definitively forecloses the DOC's arguments to the contrary. Consequently, Plaintiff's cross-motion for summary judgment will be GRANTED and Defendant's motion for *295summary judgment will be DENIED.1 A separate Order consistent with this Memorandum Opinion will follow.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Yanofsky's FOIA Request And The Accompanying Administrative Proceedings

1. Yanofsky Seeks Data Files That The DOC Compiles

On February 26, 2016, Yanofsky filed a FOIA request with the DOC, requesting records relating to that agency's I-92 and I-94 Programs. (See Pl.'s Combined Statement of Material Facts and Resp. to Def.'s Statement of Material Facts ("Consol. SUMF Part I"), ECF No. 21-2, ¶ 8.) The I-92 Program provides "international air traffic statistics to the government and the travel industry" (id. ¶ 2), while the I-94 Program "provides the official U.S. monthly and annual overseas visitor arrival s to the United States" (id. ¶ 4). One of the DOC's bureaus-the International Trade Administration ("the ITA")-uses the statistics that are collected through the I-92 program to generate a publication called the U.S. International Air Travel Statistics Report , and to create an underlying data file related to that report ("the I-92 Data File"). (See id. ¶ 3.) Meanwhile, that same bureau uses the information obtained via the I-94 Program to create another record-the Summary of International Travel to the United States -and to generate another data file ("the I-94 Data File") that consists of anonymized data about foreign visitors to the United States. (See id. ¶ 4.) The DOC then sells these reports and data files to the public. (See id. ¶¶ 3-4.)

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Bluebook (online)
306 F. Supp. 3d 292, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/yanofsky-v-us-dept-of-commerce-cadc-2018.