Consumers Union Of United States v. Consumers Product Safety Commission

590 F.2d 1209 (D.C. Cir. 1978)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

In the first round, the District Court ruled that no case or controversy was presented. That was premised on the Commission's acknowledged willingness to release the data save for a ban imposed thereon by a preliminary injunction awarded television manufacturers by the District Court for the District of Delaware in a reverse-FOIA suit involving the same information. We held that the Delaware action, to which appellants were not parties, was no obstacle to their effort in the District Court here. We reasoned that a preliminary injunction is designed merely to preserve the status quo ante pending final decision, and ' 'is not an adjudication of rights in any proper sense of the term . . . .' “Because the Delaware court had entered an order 'closing out' the case before any final stage had been reached, we concluded that the Delaware proceeding was not 'an insuperable barrier to the suit at bar.' The court was later informed that the Delaware action had not really been terminated, but that the 'closing out' order was apparently a means merely of placating the periodic call for statistics reflecting judicial efficiency in processing caseloads. In denying rehearing, we noted that appellants had still not been added as parties to the Delaware proceedings, and explained that 'since all necessary parties are before the District Court here, there appears no reason why the litigation should not proceed here. The Commission moved in the Delaware court for a change of venue to the District of Columbia but added no alternative motion to join the FOIA requesters in the Delaware case in which, we are now told, their rights have been fully and finally adjudicated. The Delaware court denied transfer primarily on the ground that, though the Commission faced the possibility of inconsistent outcomes on the merits, '(t)he time for the Commission to have moved for a transfer of these cases was in the early stages of this litigation in 1975 before all the effort and work had been expended here.' The Delaware court issued a permanent injunction. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and remanded the case to us 'for further consideration in light of the permanent injunction.'