Coastal States Gas Corporation v. Department of Energy

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• concluding that documents were not excepted partially on ground that documents did not “discuss the wisdom or merits of a particular agency policy, or recommend new agency policy”
• holding that the deliberative process privilege covers drafts, recommendations, proposals, personal opinions and debates about a policy
• recognizing that Exemption 5 protects materials otherwise protected by attorney-client privilege, the work product doctrine, or the executive deliberative process privilege
• recognizing that “counseling” intended to “assist the agency in protecting its interests” can qualify for the attorney client privilege
• holding that privilege vitiated when information circulated beyond “those members of the organization who are authorized to speak or act for the organization”
• holding that the deliberative process privilege covers “subjective documents which reflect the personal opinions of the writer rather than the policy of the agency”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).