McBurney v. Young

(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2012 1 Syllabus NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus MCBURNEY ET AL. v. YOUNG, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER AND DIRECTOR, VIRGINIA DIVISION OF CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT, ET AL. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 12–17. Argued February 20, 2013—Decided April 29, 2013 Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) grants Virginia citizens access to all public records, but grants no such right to non- Virginians. Petitioners McBurney and Hurlbert, citizens of States other than Virginia, filed records requests under the Act. After each petitioner’s request was denied, they filed a 42 U. S. C. §1983 suit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief for violations of the Privi- leges and Immunities Clause and, in Hurlbert’s case, the dormant Commerce Clause. The District Court granted Virginia’s motion for summary judgment, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed. Held: 1. Virginia’s FOIA does not violate the Privileges and Immunities Clause, which protects only those privileges and immunities that are “fundamental.” See Baldwin v. Fish and Game Comm’n of Mont., 436 U. S. 371, 382, 388. Pp. 3–12. (a) Hurlbert alleges that Virginia’s FOIA abridges his fundamen- tal right to earn a living in his chosen profession—obtaining property records on behalf of his clients. While the Privileges and Immunities Clause protects the right of citizens to “ply their trade, practice their occupation, or pursue a common calling,” Hicklin v. Orbeck, 437 U. S. 518, 524, the Court has struck down laws as violating this privilege only when they were enacted for the protectionist purpose of burden- ing out-of-state citizens. See, e.g., Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U. S. 385, 395, 397. The Virginia FOIA’s citizen/noncitizen distinction has a nonprotectionist aim. Virginia’s FOIA exists to provide a mechanism 2 MCBURNEY v. YOUNG Syllabus for Virginia citizens to obtain an accounting from their public offi- cials; noncitizens have no comparable need. Moreover, the distinc- tion between citizens and noncitizens recognizes that citizens alone foot the bill for the fixed costs underlying recordkeeping in the Com- monwealth. Any effect the Act has of preventing citizens of other States from making a profit by trading on information contained in state records is incidental. Pp. 4–6. (b) Hurlbert also alleges that Virginia’s FOIA abridges the right to own and transfer property in the Commonwealth. The right to take, hold, and dispose of property has long been seen as one of the privileges of citizenship. See, e.g., Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168, 180. However, Virginia law does not prevent noncitizens from obtaining documents necessary to the transfer of property. Records—like title and mortgage documents—maintained by the clerk of each circuit court are available to inspection by any person. Real estate tax as- sessment records are considered nonconfidential and are often posted online, a practice followed by the county from which Hurlbert sought records. Requiring a noncitizen to obtain records through the clerk’s office or on the Internet, instead of through a burdensome FOIA pro- cess, cannot be said to impose a significant burden on the ability to own or transfer property in Virginia. Pp. 6–8. (c) McBurney alleges that Virginia’s FOIA impermissibly bur- dens his access to public proceedings. The Privileges and Immunities Clause “secures citizens of one state the right to resort to the courts of another, equally with the citizens of the latter state,” Missouri Pa- cific R. Co. v. Clarendon Boat Oar Co., 257 U. S. 533, 535, but that “requirement is satisfied if the nonresident is given access . . . upon terms which . . . are reasonable and adequate for the enforcing of any rights he may have, even though they may not be . . . the same in ex- tent as those accorded to resident citizens,” Canadian Northern R. Co. v. Eggen, 252 U. S. 553, 562. Virginia’s FOIA clearly does not de- prive noncitizens of “reasonable and adequate” access to Common- wealth courts. Virginia’s court rules provide noncitizens access to nonpriviledged documents needed in litigation, and Virginia law gives citizens and noncitizens alike access to judicial records and to records pertaining directly to them. For example, McBurney utilized Virginia’s Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act to receive much of the information he had sought in his FOIA re- quest. Pp. 8–10. (d) Petitioners’ sweeping claim that the Virginia FOIA violates the Privileges and Immunities Clause because it denies them the right to access public information on equal terms with Common- wealth citizens is rejected because the right to access public infor- mation is not a “fundamental” privilege or immunity of citizenship. Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013) 3 Syllabus The Court has repeatedly stated that the Constitution does not guar- antee the existence of FOIA laws. See, e.g., Los Angeles Police Dept. v. United Reporting Publishing Corp., 528 U. S. 32, 40. Moreover, no such right was recognized at common law or in the early Republic. Nor is such a sweeping right “basic to the maintenance or well-being of the Union.” Baldwin, supra, at 388. Pp. 10–12. 2. Virginia’s FOIA does not violate the dormant Commerce Clause. The “common thread” among this Court’s dormant Commerce Clause cases is that “the State interfered with the natural functioning of the interstate market either through prohibition or thorough burdensome regulation.” Hughes v. Alexandria Scrap Corp., 426 U. S. 794, 806. Virginia’s FOIA, by contrast, neither prohibits access to an interstate market nor imposes burdensome regulation on that market. Accord- ingly, this is not properly viewed as a dormant Commerce Clause case. Even shoehorned into the Court’s dormant Commerce Clause framework, however, Hurlbert’s claim would fail. Insofar as there is a “market” for public documents in Virginia, it is a market for a product that the Commonwealth has created and of which the Com- monwealth is the sole manufacturer. A State does not violate the dormant Commerce Clause when, having created a market through a state program, it “limits benefits generated by [that] state program to those who fund the state treasury and whom the State was created to serve.” Reeves, Inc. v. Stake, 447 U. S. 429, 442. Pp. 12–14. 667 F. 3d 454, affirmed. ALITO, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. THOMAS, J., filed a concurring opinion. Cite as: 569 U. S. ____ (2013) 1 Opinion of the Court NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash- ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES _________________ No. 12–17 _________________ MARK J. MCBURNEY, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. NA- THANIEL L. YOUNG, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER AND DIRECTOR, VIRGINIA DIVISION OF CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT, ET AL. ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT [April 29, 2013] JUSTICE ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case, we must decide whether the Virginia Free- dom of Information Act, Va. Code Ann. §2.2–3700 et seq., violates either the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV of the Constitution or the dormant Commerce Clause. The Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), provides that “all public records shall be open to inspection and copying by a