Church of Scientology of California v. I.R.S.

• Decision Date: 27 May 1986
• Docket Number: No. 83-1856,83-1856
• Citation: 792 F.2d 146,253 U.S.App.D.C. 78
• Parties: , 58 A.F.T.R.2d 86-5019, 86-1 USTC P 9429 CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY OF CALIFORNIA, Appellant, v. INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 146

792 F.2d 146

253 U.S.App.D.C. 78, 58 A.F.T.R.2d

86-5019, 86-1 USTC P 9429

CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY OF CALIFORNIA, Appellant, v. INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, et al.

No. 83-1856.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued April 11, 1984.

Decided May 27, 1986.

As Amended May 27, 1986.

Robert A. Seefried, Washington, D.C., for appellant.

Richard Wyndon Perkins, Atty., Dept. of Justice, with whom Glenn L. Archer, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Joseph E. diGenova, U.S. Atty., Michael L. Paup and Stephen Gray, Attys., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., were on brief, for appellees.

Before WRIGHT and SCALIA, Circuit Judges, and FRIEDMAN, ^* Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SCALIA.

SCALIA, Circuit Judge:

This case arises out of the efforts of the Church of Scientology of California to obtain documents from the Internal Revenue Service under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552 (1982) ("FOIA"). It requires us to review the District Court's grant of summary judgment to the IRS on the adequacy of its response to the Church's FOIA request. To do so we must consider, among other things, the relation between FOIA and the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code that govern disclosure of return information, 26 U.S.C. Sec. 6103 (1982).

I

On May 16, 1980 the Church sent a Freedom of Information request to the IRS. It comprises seven single-spaced typed pages and is extremely confused, but for purposes of this appeal it has been adequately summarized by the Church as essentially requesting:

1. All documents or records "relating to or containing the names of Scientology, Church of Scientology, any specific Scientology church or entity identified by containing the words Scientology, Hubbard and/or Dianetics in their names, L. Ron Hubbard or Mary Sue Hubbard," which could be located in a number of systems of records or files specifically identified in the FOIA request, "including but not limited to those located at the National Office, Regional Offices, Service Centers, District offices or Local IRS offices."

2. All documents generated, received or which otherwise came into the possession of the IRS subsequent to the preparation of an index in a tax case involving the Church of Scientology of California pending in the United States Tax Court Church of Scientology of California v. Commissioner of IRS, 83 T.C. 381 (U.S.T.C.) [referred to below as the "Tax Court case"].

Brief for Appellants at 1-2.

The IRS's first response, dated July 22, 1980, requested additional time to "locate and consider releasing the Internal Revenue Service records to which you have requested access" and estimated that the Service would respond on August 29. On September 17, 1980, a response still not having been received, the Church filed an appeal to the Commissioner. After the IRS acknowledged but failed to respond to the appeal, the Church filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on December 18, 1980 under 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(4)(B) (1982). In January 1981 the IRS finally responded to the Church's request with a letter. For the sake of simplicity, we will limit our summary of that response to those factors that have some bearing on the issues here.

The IRS noted that it had limited the scope of the Church's request to documents pertaining to the California Church because the Church had not provided authorizations from any other Scientology entity nor from the Hubbards. Geographically the Service had limited the search to the National Office, the Covington, Kentucky, office and the Los Angeles office. The IRS claimed that all documents relating to the Tax Court case not previously released were exempt from disclosure under Section 6103(e)(7) because disclosure would seriously impair Federal tax administration. It released in full some national office documents acquired subsequent to the Tax Court case index, but justified only partial release of other National Office documents on grounds that they were outside the scope of the appeal, that their disclosure would cause a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy, see 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(b)(6), or that they reflected return information of third parties, see 26 U.S.C. Sec. 6103(a).

After the IRS answered the complaint, the Church moved for an order requiring the IRS to prepare a Vaughn index of the withheld documents, see Vaughn v. Rosen, 484 F.2d 820 (D.C.Cir.1973), but the District Court denied the motion. Instead it ordered submission for in camera inspection of: (1) twenty-six documents located in the National Office which contained portions alleged to be exempt under 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(b)(6) because their disclosure would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy; (2) three documents located at the National Office for which exemption was claimed under Section 6103(e)(7) because their disclosure would impair federal tax administration; and (3) all documents generated in connection with the Tax Court case. ¹ After in camera inspection of some 5,600 pages of documents, the District Court granted the IRS's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the action with prejudice in June 1983. The Church appealed. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291 (1982).

II

The first issue we must address is the relation between FOIA and Section 6103. The Church argues that Section 6103 gives rise to an exemption from disclosure only under FOIA Exemption 3, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(b)(3), and subject to the procedural provisions of FOIA, including its de novo review requirement. The IRS urges us to affirm the District Court's holding that Section 6103 totally supersedes FOIA and provides the exclusive criteria for release of records affected by that section, so that courts must uphold any IRS refusal to disclose under Section 6103 that is not arbitrary or capricious and does not violate the other provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act.

The IRS relies principally on Zale Corp. v. IRS, 481 F.Supp. 486 (D.D.C.1979), which has been followed by the Sixth and Seventh Circuits, see White v. IRS, 707 F.2d 897, 900 (6th Cir.1983); King v. IRS, 688 F.2d 488, 495-96 (7th Cir.1982). We cannot agree with those decisions. FOIA is a structural statute, designed to apply across-the-board to many substantive programs; it explicityly accommodates other laws by excluding from its disclosure requirement documents "specifically exempted from disclosure" by other statutes, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(b)(3); and it is subject to the provision, governing all of the Administrative Procedure Act of which it is a part, that a "[s]ubsequent statute may not be held to supersede or modify this subchapter ... except to the extent that it does so expressly," 5 U.S.C. Sec. 559. ² We find it impossible to conclude that such a statute was sub silentio repealed by Sec. 6103. Insofar as is relevant to the issue here, the latter enactment does no more than what is done by all nondisclosure statutes covered by Exemption 3: it prohibits the disclosure of certain information (returns and return information). It differs from most other nondisclosure statutes only in that it specifies lengthy exceptions to its rule of nondisclosure. Not generally, but only in the painstaking detail of these exceptions, can it be considered--what Zale called it, 481 F.Supp. at 489--a "comprehensive scheme." But that sort of comprehensiveness has nothing to do with the appropriateness of continuing application of FOIA. Even the simplest nondisclosure statute, which makes no exceptions, is "comprehensive" in that sense--brief but comprehensive instead of lengthy and comprehensive. It would be another matter if Sec. 6103 established some rules and procedures--duplicating those of FOIA--for individual members of the public to obtain access to IRS documents. But it does not. The entirety of its "comprehensive" detail relates to exceptions from the prohibition of disclosure--and even all of these, with three minor exceptions, see Sec. 6103(k)(1), (3); Sec. 6103(m)(1), pertain to disclosure to specified private individuals (e.g., the taxpayer to whom the information relates) or government officials, rather than to the public at large. That is to be contrasted with Sec. 6110, enacted at the same time as Sec. 6103, which specifically requires that IRS written determinations be "open to public inspection," and establishes procedures to obtain and restrain disclosure, time limits, the level of assessable fees, and an action to compel or restrain disclosure in the Claims Court. That scheme is a "comprehensive" one in the relevant sense--that is, in the sense of duplicating and hence presumably replacing the dispositions of FOIA. (Significantly, Congress did not leave us to speculate whether it was comprehensive enough to constitute an implicit pro tanto repeal of FOIA; the last subsection specifies that the prescribed civil remedy in the Claims Court shall be the exclusive means of obtaining disclosure, Sec. 6110(l).)

From what has been said, it should be clear that we do not share Zale's concern over our "duty to reconcile" FOIA and Sec. 6103, 481 F.Supp. at 488, or over preventing FOIA from "negat[ing], supersed[ing], or otherwise frustrat[ing] the clear purpose and structure of Sec. 6103," id. at 489. The two statutes seem to us entirely harmonious; indeed, they seem to us quite literally made for each other: Section 6103 prohibits the disclosure of certain IRS information (with exceptions for many recipients); and FOIA, which requires all agencies, including the IRS, to provide nonexempt information to the public, establishes the procedures the IRS must follow in asserting the Sec. 6103 (or any other) exemption. Of course FOIA can loosely be said to "frustrate" the purposes of Sec. 6103 in that it places upon the IRS the burden of sustaining its claimed exemption in de novo judicial review. But if...