Welcome to the DC Federal Civil Appeals Blog, where I will provide summaries and analysis of selected decisions in civil cases from the DC Circuit and the Fourth Circuit.
Our first case on the roster was chosen because it's the only DC Circuit decision this week; it's the (not) exciting United Technologies Corp. v. Dep't of Defense, No. 08-5435.
Circuit Judge Henderson drafts the unanimous opinion (Judges Rogers and Brown were also on the panel, making it an all-gal panel in an otherwise manly-seeming case), spending ten of the thirteen pages of the decision telling you what I will say in the next paragraph:
United Technologies makes helicopter and aircraft parts which the DoD buys. United Technologies' home base is in Connecticut, and some nosy local reporters submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to the Defense Contract Management Agency to see what misdeeds the DCMA had caught UTC subsidiaries doing. The DCMA, after some discussion, agreed to send out the "corrective action reports" with redactions, and United Technologies sued.
Yes, evidently you can sue to keep the federal government from revealing information about you that you think is covered by an exemption. In this case, it was 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(4), the trade secrets exemption. United Technologies argued that the exemption was there to protect the business of those who dealt with the government, and to encourage businesses to give information to the government.
The DC Circuit didn't get to the second argument, which I think is pretty silly: as the IRS tells you every year, just because bad things could happen if you disclose your information doesn't get you out of a mandatory disclosure. Regardless, the DC Circuit found that the district court hadn't explained why, despite all the evidence from United Technologies that this information was sensitive trade secrets, they should be disclosed anyway. So the DC Circuit kicked it back to the district court to come up with an explanation.
By the way, the Connecticut media asked for these documents in 2004. The story's probably pretty stale now.
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