FORTUNATO P. BENAVIDES, Circuit Judge:
This appeal concerns a reverse-Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") suit brought by Plaintiffs-Appellees Entergy
In November 2011 and January 2013, Sierra Club submitted two separate FOIA requests to EPA, requesting documents provided by Entergy to EPA pursuant to the Clean Air Act that relate to three of Entergy's power plants. When Entergy provided these documents to EPA, Entergy designated many of the documents as containing Entergy's confidential business information ("CBI") subject to FOIA Exemption 4. FOIA Exemption 4 exempts from public disclosure "trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential." 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(4). After receiving Sierra Club's FOIA requests, EPA provided Entergy with the opportunity to substantiate its CBI claim. In June and July 2014, EPA issued "final determination" letters in regard to the November 2011 and January 2013 FOIA requests, respectively. In those letters, EPA found that none of the 21,685 pages of requested documents contain Entergy CBI and thus none satisfy FOIA Exemption 4 on that basis alone. However, EPA also found that approximately 18,000 pages out of the 21,685 pages of documents contain third-party contractual information that may be subject to confidential treatment under FOIA Exemption 4. Therefore, EPA stated it "will temporarily maintain this third-party contract information as CBI" until it makes the third-party CBI determination or until the third parties waive their confidentiality interests. EPA also stated that it "will release the approximately [3,685]
On August 11, 2014, Entergy filed the underlying reverse-FOIA suit against EPA in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. A reverse-FOIA suit is one in which "a plaintiff seeks to prevent a governmental agency from releasing information to a third party in response to the third party's request for information under FOIA." Doe v. Veneman, 380 F.3d 807, 810 (5th Cir.2004). In the reverse-FOIA suit, Entergy seeks a reversal of EPA's determination that the requested documents do not contain Entergy CBI, a declaration that the documents are exempt from public disclosure under FOIA Exemption 4, and an injunction prohibiting EPA from disclosing the documents.
In the meantime, on September 11, 2014, Sierra Club filed a motion to intervene of right, alleging its interests will not be adequately represented by EPA. In the alternative, Sierra Club sought permissive intervention. Entergy and EPA opposed intervention. The magistrate judge granted the motion to intervene of right on October 15, 2014, but the district court reversed the magistrate judge's decision and denied the motion to intervene on March 4, 2015. Sierra Club filed this interlocutory appeal of the district court's decision denying its motion to intervene of right. Entergy has participated in this appeal, but EPA has not.
A district court's decision denying intervention of right is reviewed de novo. Haspel & Davis Milling & Planting Co. v. Bd. of Levee Comm'rs of the Orleans Levee Dist., 493 F.3d 570, 577 (5th Cir.2007).
Id. at 578. "Failure to satisfy any one requirement precludes intervention of right." Id. The inquiry under Rule 24(a)(2) "is a flexible one, which focuses on the particular facts and circumstances surrounding each application," and "intervention of right must be measured by a practical rather than technical yardstick." Edwards v. City of Hous., 78 F.3d 983, 999 (5th Cir.1996). The rule "is to be liberally construed," with "doubts resolved in favor of the proposed intervenor." In re Lease Oil Antitrust Litig., 570 F.3d 244, 248 (5th Cir.2009).
Entergy does not dispute that Sierra Club satisfies the first three requirements to intervene of right. At issue is the fourth requirement: whether Sierra Club's interest is inadequately represented by EPA.
"The applicant has the burden of demonstrating inadequate representation, but this burden is `minimal.'" Brumfield v. Dodd, 749 F.3d 339, 345 (5th Cir.2014) (quoting Sierra Club v. Espy, 18 F.3d 1202, 1207 (5th Cir.1994)). The applicant "need not show that the representation by existing parties will be, for certain, inadequate." Id. Rather, the burden "is satisfied if the applicant shows that representation of his interest `may be' inadequate." Haspel, 493 F.3d at 578 (citation omitted). However, the burden "cannot be treated as so minimal as to write the requirement completely out of the rule." Id. Therefore, "there are two presumptions of adequate representation." Brumfield, 749 F.3d at 345. "The first arises where one party is a representative of the absentee by law." Id. "The second presumption `arises when the would-be intervenor has the same ultimate objective as a party to the lawsuit,' in which event the applicant for intervention must show adversity of interest, collusion, or nonfeasance on the part of the existing party to overcome the presumption.'" Id. (quoting Edwards, 78 F.3d at 1005).
In this case, there is no suggestion that EPA is a representative of Sierra Club by law, so the first presumption does not apply.
Assuming arguendo that the same-ultimate-objective presumption applies, we turn to whether Sierra Club and EPA have adversity of interest and thus the presumption of adequate representation is overcome. "In order to show adversity of interest, an intervenor must demonstrate that its interests diverge from the putative representative's interests in a manner germane to the case." Texas v. United States, 805 F.3d 653, 662 (5th Cir.2015).
Sierra Club contends it and EPA have divergent interests regarding the timing of document disclosure, as evidenced by their opposing positions on stay and bifurcation. Specifically, Sierra Club claims it is interested in prompt disclosure of the requested documents, while EPA is interested only in eventual disclosure. In addition, Sierra Club contends that it does not share EPA's interests in protecting third-party CBI and cooperating with Entergy.
As we explained in detail supra, EPA agreed to not release any of the requested documents to Sierra Club until this case, which involves whether the documents contain Entergy CBI, has been resolved. Thus, the sooner this case is resolved, the sooner Sierra Club will potentially receive the documents that it seeks. Nonetheless, EPA advocated for a stay of the entire case until EPA determines whether the documents contain third-party CBI. At EPA's request, Entergy is assisting EPA in identifying documents that contain third-party CBI. Because any documents determined to contain third-party CBI will not be released to Sierra Club even if they do not contain Entergy CBI, Sierra Club will potentially receive fewer documents due to EPA's or Entergy's identification of third-party CBI. Initially, Sierra Club opposed a stay, alleging it would be prejudiced by delayed document disclosure. Subsequently, Sierra Club requested bifurcation in a manner that would continue the stay as to some documents but not as to others. EPA opposed bifurcation. Based on these facts, we find that Sierra Club's interests diverge from EPA's interests regarding stay of the case, bifurcation of the case, protection of third-party CBI, and cooperation with Entergy to identify third-party CBI.
Entergy does not seem to dispute that Sierra Club and EPA have divergent interests. Rather, Entergy contends that the matters of stay and bifurcation concern mere litigation tactics that are within the district court's broad discretion to regulate and do not warrant intervention. As to protection of third-party CBI and cooperation with Entergy, Entergy contends that
Although EPA is legally required to undergo the third-party CBI determination process, determination of the Entergy CBI issue in this case could have proceeded simultaneously and separately. Instead of allowing the two separate determinations to proceed simultaneously, EPA requested to stay the entire case until completion of the entire third-party determination. EPA also opposed bifurcating the case so that any documents for which the third-party CBI determination allegedly had been completed could be immediately adjudicated, while adjudication of any documents for which the third-party CBI determination had not been completed could continue to be stayed. EPA initially estimated that the third-party determination process would take twelve to eighteen months to complete. When the district court denied Sierra Club's motion to intervene, the case had been stayed for over six months. Currently, the case has been stayed for over eighteen months. Thus, had the case (or a portion of the case) not been stayed, then the case (or a portion of the case) could have been resolved significantly sooner than it will be. Moreover, it is undisputed that a purpose of the stay is to potentially "narrow, significantly[,]" the amount of documents at issue in the case. In other words, if EPA determines during the stay that a document contains third-party CBI, Entergy will remove that document from the case and no longer litigate whether EPA correctly determined that the document does not contain Entergy CBI. By advocating to stay the case in order to narrow the case, the parties made the stay impact the case beyond just delaying its resolution. Although stay and bifurcation in some cases might concern mere litigation tactics, in this unique situation, stay and refusal to bifurcate will result in a significantly delayed and likely narrower ruling. For these reasons, we find that Sierra Club's and EPA's divergent interests regarding stay and bifurcation are germane to this particular case.
Likewise, because this case has been stayed until EPA completes the third-party CBI determination process, the third-party CBI determination process is delaying resolution of the case. Further, because any documents containing third-party CBI will be removed from this case, EPA's protection of third-party CBI and Entergy's assistance in identifying third-party CBI will likely result in a smaller number of documents being litigated in the case. Although an agency's protection of third-party CBI and cooperation with a regulated entity to identify third-party CBI might not always impact a suit involving only the regulated entity's CBI, in this unique situation, EPA's protection of third-party CBI and cooperation with Entergy to identify third-party CBI will result in a significantly delayed and likely narrower ruling as to Entergy CBI. The fact that EPA is legally required to undertake
Because Sierra Club's interests diverge from EPA's interests in manners germane to this case, adversity of interest exists between Sierra Club and EPA.
Accordingly, Sierra Club is entitled to intervene of right.
For the foregoing reasons, Sierra Club is entitled to intervene of right. REVERSED and REMANDED.
EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge dissenting.
Although I agree with the majority opinion's careful restatement of applicable law in this intervention-of-right appeal, I cordially disagree with the conclusion that Sierra Club may intervene. As Sierra Club acknowledged in its brief, it seeks the same "ultimate result" as EPA, disclosure of all documents relevant to the Club's FOIA request that are not statutorily protected from disclosure as Entergy's or third-parties' confidential business information. Sierra Club simply wants disclosure to proceed faster, or even piecemeal. The district court, rightly in my view, regarded these concerns as bearing solely on litigation tactics, not on a fundamental adversity of interests between EPA and Sierra Club. I respectfully dissent from the conclusion that Sierra Club overcame the presumption of adequate representation.
Nevertheless, I understand the majority's assessment that timing is important to the operation of FOIA's disclosure regime. Whether Sierra Club's participation as a party to the litigation will foster or impede faster resolution of the case is largely in the district court's hands now. The panel opinion assuages some of my concern with its footnote 5, which preserves the district court's discretion in case management by noting that, "[O]ur finding should in no way be construed as opining on the merits of stay or bifurcation either in the past or in the future once Sierra Club is allowed to intervene."