Attention barristers, counselors, and assorted lawyerkin

[Sauron]

Is this as big a deal as I suspect?

Supreme Court Rules on AT&T Case
By ADAM LIPTAK

WASHINGTON — In a lively decision that relied as much on dictionaries, grammar and usage as it did on legal analysis, the Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled unanimously that corporations have no personal privacy rights for purposes of the Freedom of Information Act.

AT&T, the plaintiff in the case, had sought to block the release of documents it had provided to the government. It argued that the documents should be withheld under an exemption to the law that applied to records that “could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

The company’s strongest argument was that the statutory definition of the noun “person” specifically included corporations and other entities. It followed, the company said, that the adjective “personal” must also apply to corporations.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the court, was having none of that.

“Adjectives typically reflect the meaning of corresponding nouns,” he wrote, “but not always.” He gave examples.

“The noun ‘crab’ refers variously to a crustacean and a type of apple, while the related adjective ‘crabbed’ can refer to handwriting that is ‘difficult to read,’ ” he wrote, quoting a dictionary. “ ‘Corny,’” he went on, “has little to do with ‘corn.’ ”

Chief Justice Roberts had used similar examples at the argument of the case in January.

“You have ‘craft’ and ‘crafty’,” he said. “Totally different. ‘Crafty’ doesn’t have much to do with ‘craft.’ ‘Squirrel,’ ‘squirrelly.’ Right?”

“ ‘Pastor’ and ‘pastoral’,” he continued. “Same root, totally different.”

Common usage cut against AT&T’s argument as well, the chief justice wrote in Tuesday’s decision. “We do not usually speak of personal characteristics, personal effects, personal correspondence, personal influence or personal tragedy as referring to corporations and other artificial entities,” he wrote.

“Responding to a request for information, an individual might say, ‘that’s personal’,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “A company spokeswoman, when asked for information about the company, would not.

“In fact, we often use the word ‘personal’ to mean precisely the opposite of business-related: We speak of personal expenses and business expenses, personal life and work life, personal opinion and a company’s view.”

In addition to considering dictionary definitions for and the common usage of the word “personal” standing alone, Chief Justice Roberts said the word should also be considered in the context of the phrase “personal privacy.” Here, too, he said, “AT&T’s effort to attribute a special legal meaning to the word ‘personal’ in this particular context is wholly unpersuasive.”

“Two words together may assume a more particular meaning than those words in isolation,” he wrote, adding that “personal privacy” suggests “a kind of privacy evocative of human concerns.”

The chief justice had examples here, too. “We understand a golden cup to be a cup made of or resembling gold,” he wrote. “A golden boy, on the other hand, is one who is charming, lucky and talented. A golden opportunity is one not to be missed.”

In January 2010, the court ruled in the Citizens United decision that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend money in candidate elections. But that decision involved a question of constitutional law, while Tuesday’s decision in AT&T v. Federal Communications Commission, No. 09-1279, considered only the meaning of a statute.

AT&T had provided documents to the F.C.C. in connection with its investigation into claims of overcharges by the company in a program to provide equipment and services to schools. The documents were then sought by a trade association representing some of the company’s competitors.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, had ruled for the company, saying that “corporations, like human beings, face public embarrassment, harassment and stigma” because of their involvement in law enforcement investigations.

Justice Elena Kagan did not participate in Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision, having worked on it as United States solicitor general. The decision was otherwise comprehensively dismissive of AT&T’s arguments, and Chief Justice Roberts could not resist a parting shot in ruling against the company

“We trust that AT&T will not take it personally,” he wrote.

[California Tanker]

I don't think so. Especially since it was unanimous, it hardly seems like it was a controversial decision for them.

Corporations have all sorts of disclosure requirements, it's part of the cost of being incorporated. As long as those disclosures are in government hands, a FOIA claim can be sent in to get them. If the legislature thinks that certain information should not be subject to FOIA, all it needs to do is write that exemption in the legislation.

I'm actually a little surprised it made it as far as SCOTUS.

By way of a comparison, this from the Illinois AG today.

Atty. general: Illinois should release FOID card list - chicagotribune.com

SPRINGFIELD -- Illinois State Police stood their ground today after the state's attorney general determined the agency must disclose the names of people authorized to own guns in Illinois to comply with public records law.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan's public access counselor issued a letter Monday night rejecting state police arguments that releasing the information is an unwarranted invasion of privacy prohibited by the state public records law or that its disclosure would automatically endanger the lives of gun owners or those who don't have firearms.

Actual persons are, in the AG's opinion, not covered from FOIA disclosures of personal information, so fictional persons aren't exactly likely to either.

NTM

[Sauron]

Originally Posted by California Tanker

I don't think so. Especially since it was unanimous, it hardly seems like it was a controversial decision for them.

Corporations have all sorts of disclosure requirements, it's part of the cost of being incorporated. As long as those disclosures are in government hands, a FOIA claim can be sent in to get them. If the legislature thinks that certain information should not be subject to FOIA, all it needs to do is write that exemption in the legislation.

I'm actually a little surprised it made it as far as SCOTUS.

Here is why I think it might be a bigger deal:

But companies are used to being treated legally as people; the government protects them from unreasonable searches and seizures, for example. The Business Roundtable's Maria Ghazal hopes tomorrow's case will clearly establish a corporate right to personal privacy as well.

Maria Ghazal: Something you wouldn't necessarily want your competitors or other companies to know that's more personal to your company. It's not necessarily under the category of a proprietary secret, but it's what you feel is something that should stay within the company.

Businesses take heart from last year's Citizens United case. That's where the justices gave companies the same right as individuals to participate in political campaigns. They're hoping the justices are ready to expand that right.

SCOTUS has decided that corporate personhood has smaller boundaries than actual citizenship, and corporations cannot automatically assume that Bill of Rights protections apply to them.

[California Tanker]

I don't believe anyone seriously claimed that corporations have full citizenship, or all the benefits thereof. You're not going to find IBM Corp on the register of voters. Neither will you find resident aliens.

I was re-reading Citizens United today, as it happens, it came up on an utterly unrelated thread on another board. The judgement didn't make any mention of citizenship that I noted, but I did note that the First Amendment doesn't say anything about citizenship requirements. It just says 'will not restrict freedom of speech' and doesn't restrict it on the basis of who or what is making that speech. The Constitution is capable of (and does) distinguish between citizens and persons, and unless it specifically says 'citizen', then any person, regardless of if they're a citizen or not, can gain the Constitutional protections. That applies to corporations as well. I think Citizens' United is overhyped, frankly.

NTM

[Sauron]

I don't believe anyone seriously claimed that corporations have full citizenship, or all the benefits thereof. You're not going to find IBM Corp on the register of voters. Neither will you find resident aliens.

The Citizens United case called that default assumption into question. When the Supreme Court decided to overturn a century of judicial precedent in that case, then nothing is for sure anymore.

And in fact, the argument that you're saying would not have worked - that's pretty much the argument that AT&T was making.

Certainly the US Chamber of Commerce would make that argument, believing that - after Citizens United - a friendlier Court would now permit the rest of their camel to come into the tent, and help itself to other Constitutionally-protected rights previously assigned only to citizens.

[California Tanker]

The Citizens United case called that default assumption into question. When the Supreme Court decided to overturn a century of judicial precedent in that case, then nothing is for sure anymore

I'm not sure it did. From reading the opinion, the case it overturned (Austin) dated from the 1990s, and that itself was a divergeance from cases in the 1970s where corporations were held to be able to claim First Amendment protections. 'Political speech is “indispensable to decision-making in a democracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation.”' First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765 (1978). But Austin didn't overturn the earlier ones, it merely differentiated in the circumstances.

From the opinion's syllabus.

This Court is confronted with conflicting lines of precedent: a pre-Austin line forbidding speech restrictions based on the speaker’s corporate identity and a post-Austin line permitting them.

The problem, according to the Majority, appears to have been that in the Citizens United instance, there was sufficient overlap in the circumstances that they couldn't both follow the Belotti case and the Austin case, something had to give, and they tilted on the side of not restricting speech.

And in fact, the argument that you're saying would not have worked - that's pretty much the argument that AT&T was making.

And it didn't work. So what's the problem?

Certainly the US Chamber of Commerce would make that argument, believing that - after Citizens United - a friendlier Court would now permit the rest of their camel to come into the tent, and help itself to other Constitutionally-protected rights previously assigned only to citizens.

You certainly can't blame them for trying. That's what the lawyers are paid for. Even if it was a case of more hope than expectation, what had they to lose for the effort? The reason that post-Heller gun caselaw has generally supported the regulations despite the cries of pending calamity when the case was decided was that every counsel of someone up on a gun charge, up to mass murderer, was trying to stick his foot into the 2nd Amendment Door that Heller cracked open simply because it was an avenue which could be tried. That they have repeatedly lost is not a reversal of any particular trend started by Heller, it's just a reflection that they're chancing their arm. No different here, really.

(Where are the other lawer-trained folk on this thread?!)

NTM

[ChuckF]

Not really a huge deal, I don't think. Straightforward statutory construction. And a very nice opinion, I thought. It's satisfying just because AT&T is evil, and they apparently had the balls to advance an argument based on the fact that a corporation can be subject to "personal jurisdiction." I would be much more interested in reading the third circuit opinion that this reverses, which I shall do during this class.

[lisarea]

I saw this, and immediately got P. MAD AT MATLOCK.

This is like a whole legal argument hinging on some disingenuous equivocation of the legal fiction of corporate personhood vs. actual personhood?

Fucking lawyers.

HEY MATLOCK! COMMON SENSE IS NOT THAT COMMON LOLOLOLOL!

[Stephen Maturin]

I tend to agree with CT and Chuck. The Freedom of Information Act establishes a general rule requiring covered federal agencies to disclose certain types of information and documents on demand. The general rule is subject to multiple exceptions, one of which provides that the duty to disclose doesn't extend to "records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such law enforcement records or information . . . could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy[.]" 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(C). The issue was whether the statutory term "personal privacy" included the privacy interests of corporations. AT&T and the Third Circuit said, "Fuck yeah." SCOTUS said . Like Chuck said, the Supreme Court decision is a pretty standard exercise in statutory construction.

The notion that corporations are entitled to protection under the U.S. Constitution is a whole 'nother animal. That notion is not of recent vintage, sad to say. Corporations became "persons" for 14th Amendment purposes in 1886. They were accorded Bill of Rights protections starting in 1898. They've had a First Amendment right of political expression since at least 1978, and got First Amendment protections in other contexts decades before that. The Austin case that Citizens United overruled was a small and short-lived oasis of sanity in what was otherwise a gargantuan desert of suck.

So yeah, FCC v. AT&T, Inc. is good news in the FOIA context but will have no effect whatsoever on "corporate personhood" as a matter of constitutional law.

ETA: IT IS WHAT IT IS MR. PEA. Also, it is the EXCEPTION THAT PROVES THE RULE.

[livius drusus]

I forgive you for that because of the . They're a perpetual get out free card.

[Sauron]

Hmm. Looks like I overestimated the connection between this SC case and any expansion of corporate personhood.

It's just as well. Perhaps I'll stick to commenting on business issues, so I can avoid the ghastly embarrassment of hordes of



Edited to add: that is one definitely cute and colorful smiley, though. I predict a rise in its usage around these here parts....

[Angakuk]

I think I will start a corporation. I will name it Chuck and I will enroll it in a university, forever.

[wei yau]

Originally Posted by Sauron

I predict a rise in ... these here parts....

[California Tanker]

They were accorded Bill of Rights protections starting in 1898. They've had a First Amendment right of political expression since at least 1978, and got First Amendment protections in other contexts decades before that. The Austin case that Citizens United overruled was a small and short-lived oasis of sanity in what was otherwise a gargantuan desert of suck

You apparently disapprove. The Democratic National Committee is a corporation. Do we really want to set a default position of being able to muzzle its speech without some ability to draw upon the First Amendment for protection?

NTM

[Sauron]

Originally Posted by wei yau

Your Fruit of the Loom are laughing at the rise in my parts.......