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JURIS: Tax Analysts Press Release
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TAXPAYER ASSETS PROJECT - INFORMATION POLICY NOTE
CROWN JEWELS CAMPAIGN - JURIS
The following is a press release (a bit dated), from Tax Analysts,
regarding their FOIA case for the JURIS database. In another note we
will provide some details of a May 16 meeting on public access to legal
information which is being hosted by OMB, Department of Justice, Library
of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, and the
Administrative Office of the Courts, to look at a wide range of issues
relating to access to legal information, including topics such as the use
of non-proprietary citation systems, access to federal caselaw in digital
form, and pricing. jamie
tax analysts
6830 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, Virginia 22213 (703) 5334400
April 12, 1994
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT BEGINS PUBLIC RELEASE OF
JURIS LEGAL RESEARCH SERVICE
The U.S. Department of Justice has begun to release to the
public large portions of its JURIS electronic legal research
service. Justice's action responds to a Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) request filed by Tax Analysts in November 1993 and a
FOIA suit filed in January 1994. But the West Publishing Company,
an intervenor in the Tax Analysts' suit, continues to argue that
most of the JURIS service should be destroyed.
The 169 databases released by the Department of Justice
cover a broad range of subject matters, including the full texts
of recent public laws, administrative manuals and decisions, U.S.
treaties, court briefs filed by government attorneys, federal
regulations, opinions of the Attorney General, Solicitor General,
and Comptroller General, sentencing guidelines, consent decrees,
the legislative histories of recent statutes, and administrative
decisions from the Department of Health and Human Services, the
Board of Immigration Appeals, the National Labor Relations Board,
the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and a score of
other federal agencies.
The full texts of the tax-related portions of the JURIS
service will be made available by Tax Analysts in its daily
online tax research service, Tax Notes Today, which appears on
Lexis and Dialog. The tax databases contain legislative histories
of tax statutes, briefs filed in tax cases from 1981 forward, tax
summons enforcement decisions and codes, a tax protester case
list, Justice's criminal tax manual, tax indictment forms, tax
jury instructions, and Justice's criminal tax newsletter.
Tax Analysts anticipates that other publishers will make
available the nontax portions of the newly released databases.
A complete listing of the available databases is attached as
Appendix A.
Interested persons can purchase tapes containing individual
databases from the Department of Justice at prices ranging from
$10.50 to $168, plus postage. Orders should be sent to: Systems
Policy Staff, Department of Justice, Washington Center Building,
Suite 850, 1001 G Street, N.W., Washington,D.C. 20530.
The 169 databases in the current release represent only a
fraction of the JURIS databases. Still to be released are
databases supplied to JURIS by the Department of Health and Human
Services, the Department of Education, and the Department of the
Air Force, which operates the Department of Defense Legal
Automated Systems. The Air Force databases reportedly contain
substantial amounts of U.S. case law.
West Urges Erasure
Yet to be decided in Tax Analysts' FOIA suit is the fate of
the enormous U.S. case law JURIS database created for the
Department of Justice by the West Publishing Company using
government-owned JURIS software provided under contract to West
and public-domain court opinions reportedly derived from Westlaw,
West's online legal research system. West has intervened in the
Tax Analysts FOIA suit to press its claim that this JURIS case
law database should be erased by Justice, rather than opened to
the public.
The arguments of West and Tax Analysts are summarized in
Appendix B.
The JURIS case law database sought by Tax Analysts does not
include West's case headnotes, page numbers, or case digests. It
contains only the actual words written by the courts.
Promoting Public Access
When announcing release of the first group of JURIS
databases, Tax Analysts also released a "discussion draft"
containing suggested principles relating to the public
availability of U.S. statutory and case law in electronic form. A
copy of the discussion draft is attached as Appendix C.
"U.S. statutes and the opinions of U.S. judges are public
property," said Thomas F. Field, executive director of Tax
Analysts, when releasing the discussion draft. "In light of the
arguments raised in our current FOIA suit," he continued, "we
hope that interested government agencies, publishers, and other
persons will join in considering how best to facilitate
electronic access to these public documents. We hope that our
draft is a helpful contribution to this discussion."
The discussion draft suggests that U.S. courts should
provide their opinions in electronic form directly to a
centralized, government-owned repository. Among the possible
repositories are the Department of Justice's JURIS system, the
Library of Congress, or the Government Printing Office. In
addition, Congress and executive branch agencies would be
required to provide their output of statutes and legal opinions
to the electronic repository.
Whatever repository is selected, the draft suggests
development of a system of electronic citations which could be
used in lieu of the systems of citation owned by West Publishing
and others. The draft proposes that the costs of operating the
electronic repository be covered by opening it to the professions
and the public and charging user fees.
Tax Analysts
Tax Analysts is a nonprofit District of Columbia corporation
founded in 1970. Its publications provide a forum for the
discussion of a wide variety of tax ideas. Its best known print
publication is Tax Notes magazine, which appears weekly. Besides
print, it also publishes in microform, online, CD-ROM, and
diskette.
Since its inception, Tax Analysts has conducted a public
interest law practice in support of its journalistic goals. Its
Freedom of Information Act suits have opened up a wide variety of
government documents, including tax-related Treasury
correspondence, IRS letter rulings, IRS technical advice
memorandums, IRS general counsel memorandums, IRS actions on
decision, IRS technical memorandums relating to regulations, U.S.
district court tax opinions not otherwise available from any
publisher, and tax petitions and complaints filed in the courts
of the United States.
Appendixes:
A. Department of Justice April 5, 1994 letter
enclosing a "JURIS File Price List".
B. Summary of the arguments of the parties in
Tax Analysts v. Department of Justice, West Publishing Company,
Intervenor-Defendant
C. Memorandum: "Promoting Public Availability of U.S. Statutory
and Case Law in Electronic Form"
_________________________________________________________________
Appendix B
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENTS OF THE PARTIES
Tax Analysts v. U.S. Department of Justice,
West Publishing Company, Intervenor-Defendant
Civil Action No. 94-0043-CRR
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
Under a contract with the U.S. Department of Justice,
the West Publishing Company applied government-owned JURIS
software to public domain U.S. court decisions and to
administrative agency materials such as IRS rulings. The
resulting databases comprise about 80 percent of the JURIS
service.
Tax Analysts filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act
in January 1994, requesting access to the databases comprising
the JURIS service. Its request excludes West headnotes, page
numbers, or case digests, but includes the public domain
databases described above.
West contends in its court briefs that it has a property
interest in the court decisions and agency materials that it
processed for the Department of Justice. It argues that this
property interest and its contract with Justice gives it the
right to require Justice to erase these materials or return them
to West, thus defeating Tax Analysts' Freedom of Information Act
request. West supports this argument by claiming that it holds a
compilation copyright in Westlaw which survived the Supreme
Court's decision in Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone
Service Co., Inc., 499 U.S. 340 (1991)
Tax Analysts argues that what distinguishes one database
(WESTLAW) from another (JURIS) is the software used to construct
that database and retrieve documents from it. Tax Analysts
contends that when government-owned software was applied by West,
at public expense, to public-domain court opinions, the result
was a JURIS database that is properly in the public domain under
FOIA. It also contends that the West-Justice data processing
contract, by its terms, fails to require erasure of the case law
sought by Tax Analysts, and that no one can copyright the
decisions of the U.S. courts or U.S. administrative agencies.
The Tax Analysts FOIA suit has been assigned to Judge
Charles R. Richey of the U.S. District Court for the District of
Columbia. The case has been fully briefed and is awaiting
decision on the government's motion to dismiss.
Counsel for the Parties
Tax Analysts is represented by William A. Dobrovir, 65
Culpeper Street, Warrenton, Virginia 22186, telephone (703)
341-2183.
The attorneys representing the Department of Justice are
Elizabeth A. Puqh and Susan Hall Lennon, Civil Division,
Federal Programs Branch, U.S. Department of Justice, P.O. Box
883, Washington, D.C. 20044, telephone (202) 514-5838.
West Publishing is represented by Burt A. Braverman and
T. Scott Thompson of Cole, Raywid & Braverman, 1919
Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006, telephone
(202)659-9750. Of counsel to West are Joseph M. Musilek and
Eric C. Tostrud of Heins Schatz & Paquin, 2200 Washington
Square, 100 Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis, Minnesota
55401, telephone (612) 339-6900.
Documents Available
The following documents filed by the parties are available
on request through the Tax Analysts Access Service. These
documents are available without charge to students, university or
public libraries, and members of the working press. Normal Access
Service charges apply to other orders. For further information,
or to order, call (800) 955-3444.
* Complaint for Access to Records and for Temporary and Permanent
Injunctive Relief. Doc 94-3771 (9 pages)
* Exhibits to Complaint. Doc 94-3772 (165 pages)
* Memorandum in Support of Defendant's Partial Motion to Dismiss.
Doc 94-3773 (30 pages)
* Exhibits to Justice's Memorandum. Doc 94-3774 (40 pages)
* Intervenor-Defendant West Publishing Company's Memorandum of
Points and Authorities in Support of Motion to Dismiss. Doc
94-3775 (28 pages)
* Exhibits to West's Memorandum. Doc 94-3776 (151 pages)
* Plaintiff's Opposition to Defendant's Motions to Dismiss. Doc
94-3777 (30 pages)
* Exhibits to Plaintiff's Opposition. Doc 94-3778 (223 pages)
* Defendant's Reply to Plaintiff's Opposition Brief. Doc 94-3779
(19 pages)
* Exhibit to Defendant's Reply. Doc 94-3780 (6 pages)
* Reply Brief of West Publishing Company in Support of Its Motion
to Dismiss. Doc 94-3781 (23 pages)
* Exhibit to West's Reply Brief. Doc 94-3782 (5 pages)
* Plaintiff's Motion for Leave to File Supplemental Memorandum.
Doc 94-3783 (4 pages)
* Plaintiff's Supplemental Memorandum. Doc 94-3784 (8 pages)
* The Department's Opposition to Plaintiff's Motion for Leave to
File Supplemental Memorandum. Doc 94-3785 (6 bares)
* West Publishing Company's Opposition to Plaintiff's Motion for
Leave to File Supplemental Memorandum. Doc 94-3786 (4 pages)
_________________________________________________________________
Appendix C
Discussion Draft
PROMOTING PUBLIC AVAILABILITY OF STATUTES,
CASE LAW, AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW IN ELECTRONIC FORM
1. Court Opinions. In addition to slip opinions, U.S. courts
should be required to release their opinions in electronic form,
in a standard format, directly to a centralized, government-owned
electronic repository.
2. Electronic Repository. The U.S. Department of Justice's
JURIS database might constitute an appropriate repository, but
the Library of Congress would probably be a more appropriate
choice. Other possibilities are the Government Printing Office or
the Information Services Office of the House of Representatives.
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts is yet another
possibility.
3. Agency Documents. Whatever repository is selected,
Congress and Executive Branch agencies should be required to
provide their output of statutes, legal opinions, and rulings to
that repository in electronic form.
4. Citations. The electronic repository should assign an
uncomplicated, publicly owned citation to each legal opinion or
other document that it receives. A citation such as 94 NLRB
191598 would be sufficient, where 94 indicates the year of
receipt, NLRB is the database identifier indicating that the
database contains National Labor Relations Board documents, and
191598 is the serial number assigned within the year to documents
added to that database. Similarly, 94 CA2 109 would identify the
109th opinion handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit in the year 1994.
5. Court Rules. Court rules should be amended to permit use
of government-owned citations in briefs and other legal
documents, in lieu of privately owned, proprietary systems of
citation.
6. Government and Library Access. Access to the electronic
repository should be available without charge, or at reduced
cost, to the courts, Congress, Executive Branch agencies and
their FOIA reading rooms, public libraries, and state and local
governments.
7. Public Access. The information and citations contained in
the electronic repository should be available to the general
public, the professions, and the information industry, at prices
sufficient to defray the costs of operating the system.
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