Nat'l Veterans Legal Servs. Program v. United States
Decision Date | 06 August 2020 |
Docket Number | 2019-1081, 2019-1083 |
Citation | 968 F.3d 1340 |
Parties | NATIONAL VETERANS LEGAL SERVICES PROGRAM, National Consumer Law Center, Alliance for Justice, Plaintiffs-Appellants v. UNITED STATES, Defendant-Cross-Appellant |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Federal Circuit |
Deepak Gupta, Gupta Wessler PLLC, Washington, DC, argued for plaintiffs-appellants. Also represented by Jonathan Taylor ; William H. Narwold, Motley Rice LLC, Hartford, CT; Meghan Oliver, Mt. Pleasant, SC.
Alisa Beth Klein, Appellate Staff, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, argued for defendant-cross-appellant. Also represented by Mark B. Stern, Ethan P. Davis.
Sean Marotta, Hogan Lovells US LLP, Washington, DC, for amici curiae W. Royal Furgeson, Jr., Nancy Gertner, Brian L. Owsley, Viktor V. Pohorelsky, Shira Ann Scheindlin, Stephen W. Smith, Richard A. Posner. Also represented by Stephen Schultze, Claudia Pare.
Phillip R. Malone, Juelsgaard Intellectual Property and Innovation Clinic, Mills Legal Clinic, Stanford Law School, Stanford, CA, for amici curiae Casetext, Docket Alarm, Fastcase, Free Law Project, Internet Archive, Judicata, Mark A. Lemley, Ravel, Syntexys, UniCourt.
Bruce D. Brown, The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Arlington, VA, for amici curiae The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, American Society of Newspaper Editors, Associated Press Media Editors, Association of Alternative News Media, First Amendment Coalition, First Look Media Works, Inc., International Documentary Association, Investigative Reporting Workshop, MPA, National Press Photographers Association, Online News Association, Radio Television Digital News Association, Reporters Without Borders, Seattle Times Company, Society of Professional Journalists, Tully Center for Free Speech, Bay Area News Group, BuzzFeed, California News Publishers Association, Freedom of the Press Foundation, The Media Institute, The National Press Club, National Press Club Journalism Institute, New York Times Company, PEN America, POLITICO LLC, Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.
Elizabeth Wydra, Constitutional Accountability Center, Washington, DC, for amicus curiae Joseph I. Lieberman.
Brett Max Kaufman, Center for Democracy, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York, NY, for amici curiae American Association of Law Libraries, American Civil Liberties Union, American Library Association, Cato Institute, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.
Before Lourie, Clevenger, and Hughes, Circuit Judges.
These interlocutory cross-appeals challenge the district court's interpretation of a statutory note to 28 U.S.C. § 1913 permitting the federal judiciary to charge "reasonable fees" for "access to information available through automatic data processing equipment." Plaintiffs contend that under this provision unlawfully excessive fees have been charged for accessing federal court records through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system and that the district court identifies too little unlawful excess. The government argues that the district court identifies too much (and also that the district court lacked jurisdiction). We conclude that the district court got it just right. We therefore affirm and remand for further proceedings.
The statutory note at issue follows the section text of 28 U.S.C. § 1913 and provides in relevant part:
28 U.S.C. § 1913 note (2012) ( § 1913 Note).1
To briefly introduce the players referenced, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO) is an agency within the judicial branch that provides a broad range of support services to federal courts; and the Judicial Conference is the national policymaking body for the federal courts, made up of the Chief Justice and certain federal judges from each judicial circuit, see 28 U.S.C. § 331. These two bodies act in concert, with the AO advising and supporting the Judicial Conference, and developing the annual judiciary budget for congressional approval, with input from the Judicial Conference.
Congress passed the original version of § 1913 Note in the early 1990s soon after the Judicial Conference, in 1988, first authorized an "experimental program of electronic access for the public to court information." REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE JUDICIAL CONFERENCE OF THE UNITED STATES 83 (Sept. 14, 1988) (1988 JUD. CONF. REP. )2 ; J.A. 2903. This "experimental program" eventually grew into the PACER system used today for online access to federal court dockets and case records. See Judiciary Appropriations Act, 1991, Pub. L. No. 101-515, § 404, 104 Stat. 2101, 2132–33 (1990); Judiciary Appropriations Act, 1992, Pub. L. No. 102-140, § 303, 105 Stat. 782, 810 (1991). Section 1913 Note was last amended by the E-Government Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-347, § 205(e), 116 Stat. 2899, 2915 (2002). Before PACER's advent, federal court dockets and filings were all on paper. If members of the public wanted to view those records, they had to travel to the courthouse to request access. PACER revolutionized public access to federal courts by making dockets and electronic case records viewable from any web-connected computer.
Since PACER's inception, the Judicial Conference has charged fees for its use because Congress has never appropriated funds to cover the cost of PACER operations. J.A. 2589, 2632. Although the federal judiciary is an independent branch of government, it depends largely on appropriations of taxpayer dollars from Congress in order to function. See, e.g. , J.A. 455–2351 ( ). Annual appropriations for the judiciary cover judge and staff salaries, federal defender services, courthouse security, and juror payments, among other things. But the judiciary can also self-fund certain services and operations by charging fees to the public for using them. PACER has operated as one of these self-funded services.
When PACER was only accessible by dial-up phone connection,3 fees were charged by the minute. Once PACER moved to a web interface in 1998, the Judicial Conference started charging users $0.07 per page for downloads and printing—which increased to $0.10 per page in 2012—subject to certain exemptions, waivers, and caps. The applicable fees are listed in a periodically updated Electronic Public Access (EPA) Fee Schedule (available at https://www.uscourts.gov/services-forms/fees/electronic-public-access-fee-schedule ) in accordance with § 1913 Note, paragraph (a).4 During the period relevant to this litigation, the Judicial Conference used these PACER fees to fund six EPA programs and projects in addition to funding the operation of PACER itself:
In April 2016, plainti...
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