United States Fish and Wildlife Serv. v. Sierra Club, Inc.

Summary

Justice Barrett, writing for the Court, held that FOIA’s deliberative process privilege protects the Services’ in-house draft biological opinions because they were predecisional and deliberative, rather than final agency decisions. A document’s status depends on its function within the decisionmaking process, not simply its draft label, practical influence, or position as the agency’s last statement about an abandoned proposal. The Court reversed the Ninth Circuit and remanded, leaving segregability for the District Court. Justice Breyer, joined by Justice Sotomayor, dissented. He considered completed draft biological opinions ordinarily functionally final and would have remanded for a determination whether these particular documents were completed drafts or merely drafts of drafts.