Opinion

Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. And Energy Research Foundation v. Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board

  • 969 F.2d 1248
  • 297 U.S. App. D.C. 248
  • 22 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. Law Inst.) 21496
  • 20 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 1564
  • 1992 U.S. App. LEXIS 25153
Court
Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
Filed
Oct 9, 1992
Status
Published
Author
Williams
On the bench
Buckley, Williams, Ginsburg, Mikya, Wald, Edwards, Silberman, Sentelle, Henderson, Randolph
Cited by
7 cases
Authority
More cited than 25.7%

under the analogous Exemption 3 to the Gov *1172 ernment in the Sunshine Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552b(c)(3)

How later courts described this case

  • under the analogous Exemption 3 to the Gov *1172 ernment in the Sunshine Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552b(c)(3)
  • under the analogous Exemption 3 to the Government in the Sunshine Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552b(c)(3)
  • under the analogous Exemption 3 to the Government in the Sunshine Act, 5 U.S.C. s 552b(c)(3)

Written by the judges who cited it.

The opinion

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,

concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc.

For the reasons stated in my dissent, I continue to believe the panel decision is quite wrong. But it is hard to classify the dispute as one of “exceptional importance” or where en banc treatment is truly “necessary” to maintain uniformity of circuit law. See Rule 35(a), Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. The opinion claims adherence to United States Dep’t of Justice v. Julian, 486 U.S. 1 (1988), which appears to preclude finding a “require[ment]” of non-disclosure simply by application of the expressio unius maxim to a mandate of disclosure; the panel does not suggest that later cases have undermined Julian . Thus the decision is evidently driven by some idiosyncratic feature of 42 U.S.C. § 2286d(a) (1988), admittedly still undetectable by me, rather than by a view that specific mandates of disclosure generally support an inference that related disclosures are forbidden. Believing the case will cast no shadow over circuit law on Exemption 3,1 have not called for a vote on rehearing en banc.

WALD, Circuit Judge:

I agree with Judge Williams on the merits of the issue. I am less sanguine about its “nonexceptional” nature; I can only hope his prediction of its “shadowless” character proves correct. I do not call for an en banc rehearing because I believe it would be futile to do so.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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