09-1279 FCC v. AT&T, Inc.

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FOIA
Personal privacy; corporations

Corporations do not have “personal privacy” for the purposes of the exemption in 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(7)(C).
AT&T argues that the word “personal” in Exemption 7(C) incorporates the statutory definition of “person,” which includes corporations, §551(2). But adjectives do not always reflect the meaning of corresponding nouns. “Person” is a defined term in the statute; “personal” is not. When a statute does not define a term, the Court typically “give[s] the phrase its ordinary meaning.” Johnson v. United States , 559 U. S. ___, ___. “Personal” ordinarily refers to individuals. People do not generally use terms such as personal characteristics or personal correspondence to describe the characteristics or correspondence of corporations. In fact, “personal” is often used to mean precisely the opposite of business-related: We speak of personal expenses and business expenses, personal life and work life, personal opinion and a company’s view. Dictionary definitions also suggest that “personal” does not ordinarily relate to artificial “persons” like corporations.

AT&T contends that its reading of “personal” is supported by the common legal usage of the word “person.” Yet while “person,” in a legal setting, often refers to artificial entities, AT&T’s effort to ascribe a corresponding legal meaning to “personal” again elides the difference between “person” and “personal.” AT&T provides scant support for the proposition that “personal” denotes corporations, even in a legal context.

Regardless of whether “personal” can carry a legal meaning apart from its ordinary one, statutory language should be construed “in light of the terms surrounding it.” Leocal v. Ashcroft , 543 U. S. 1 . Exemption 7(C) refers not just to the word “personal,” but to the term “personal privacy.” “Personal” in that phrase conveys more than just “of a person”; it suggests a type of privacy evocative of human concerns—not the sort usually associated with an entity like AT&T. AT&T does not cite any other instance in which a court has expressly referred to a corporation’s “personal privacy.” Nor does it identify any other statute that does so. While AT&T argues that this Court has recognized “privacy” interests of corporations in the Fourth Amendment and double jeopardy contexts, this case does not call for the Court to pass on the scope of a corporation’s “privacy” interests as a matter of constitutional or common law. AT&T contends that the FCC has not demonstrated that the phrase “personal privacy” necessarily excludes corporations’ privacy. But construing statutory language is not merely an exercise in ascertaining “the outer limits of [a word’s] definitional possibilities,” Dolan v. Postal Service , 546 U. S. 481 , and AT&T has provided no sound reason in the statutory text or context to disregard the ordinary meaning of the phrase.

582 F. 3d 490, reversed.

09-1279 FCC v. AT&T, Inc.

Roberts, C.J.

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