Sentenza

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES BURNEY ET AL. v. YOUNG, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER AND DIRECTOR, VIRGINIA DIVISION OF CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT, ET AL. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
M
C
BURNEY
ET AL
.
v
. YOUNG, DEPUTY
COMMISSIONER AND DIRECTOR, VIRGINIA
DIVISION OF CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT,
ET AL
.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 12–17. Argued February 20, 2013—Decided April 29, 2013
Virginia's Freedom of Information Ac
t (FOIA) grants Virginia citizens
access to all public records, bu
t grants no such right to non-
Virginians. Petitioners McBurney and Hurlbert, citizens of States
other than Virginia, filed records requests under the Act. After each
petitioner's request was denied, they filed a 42 U. S. C. §1983 suit
seeking declaratory and injunctive
relief for violations of the Privi
-
leges and Immunities Clause and, in Hurlbert's case, the dormant
Commerce Clause. The District Cour
t granted Virginia's motion for
summary judgment, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed.
Held
:
1.
Virginia's FOIA does not vi
olate the Privileges and Immunities
Clause, which protects only those
privileges and immunities that are
“fundamental.” See
Baldwin
v.
Fish and Game Comm'n of Mont.
,
436 U. S. 371, 382, 388. Pp. 3–12.
(a)
Hurlbert alleges that Virginia's FOIA abridges his fundamen
-
tal right to earn a living in his ch
osen profession—obtaining property
records on behalf of his clients.
While the Privileges and Immunities
Clause protects the right of citizens
to “ply their trade, practice their
occupation, or pursue a common calling,”
Hicklin
v.
Orbeck
, 437 U. S.
518, 524, the Court has struck down laws as violating this privilege
only when they were enacted for th
e protectionist purpose of burden
-
ing out-of-state citizens. See,
e.g.
,
Toomer
v.
Witsell
, 334 U. S. 385,
395, 397. The Virginia FOIA's citizen/noncitizen distinction has a
nonprotectionist aim. Virginia's
FOIA exists to provide a mechanism
2
M
C
BURNEY
v.
YOUNG
Syllabus
for Virginia citizens to obtain an accounting from their public offi
-
cials; noncitizens have no compar
able need. Moreover, the distinc
-
tion between citizens and noncitizen
s recognizes that citizens alone
foot the bill for the fixed costs und
erlying recordkeeping in the Com
-
monwealth. Any effect the Act has
of preventing citizens of other
States from making a profit by trading on information contained in
state records is incidental. Pp. 4–6.
(b)
Hurlbert also alleges that
Virginia's FOIA abridges the right
to own and transfer pr
operty in the Commonwealth. The right to
take, hold, and dispose of property has long been seen as one of the
privileges of citizenship. See,
e.g., Paul
v.
Virginia
, 8 Wall. 168, 180.
However, Virginia law does not pr
event noncitizens from obtaining
documents necessary to the transfer
of property. Records—like title
and mortgage documents—maintained by the clerk of each circuit
court are available to inspection by any person. Real estate tax as
-
sessment records are considered no
nconfidential and are often posted
online, a practice followed by the
county from which Hurlbert sought
records. Requiring a noncitizen to obtain records through the clerk's
office or on the Internet, instead
of through a burdensome FOIA pro
-
cess, cannot be said to impose a si
gnificant burden on the ability to
own or transfer property in Virginia. Pp. 6–8.
(c)
McBurney alleges that Vi
rginia's FOIA impermissibly bur
-
dens his access to public proceedin
gs. The Privileges and Immunities
Clause “secures citizens of one stat
e the right to resort to the courts
of another, equally with the ci
tizens of the latter state,”
Missouri Pa
-
cific R. Co.
v.
Clarendon Boat Oar Co.
, 257 U. S. 533, 535, but that
“requirement is satisfied if the nonresident is given access . . . upon
terms which . . . are reasonable and adequate for the enforcing of any
rights he may have, even though they
may not be . . . the same in ex
-
tent as those accorded to resident citizens,”
Canadian Northern R.
Co.
v.
Eggen
, 252 U. S. 553, 562. Virginia's FOIA clearly does not de
-
prive noncitizens of “reasonable
and adequate” access to Common
-
wealth courts. Virginia's court rules provide noncitizens access to
nonpriviledged documents needed
in litigation, and Virginia law
gives citizens and noncitizens alike
access to judicial records and to
records pertaining directly to th
em. For example, McBurney utilized
Virginia's Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices
Act to receive much of the informat
ion he had sought in his FOIA re
-
quest. Pp. 8–10.
(d)
Petitioners' sweeping claim
that the Virginia FOIA violates
the Privileges and Immunities Clau
se because it denies them the
right to access public information on equal terms with Common
-
wealth citizens is rejected because the right to access public infor
-
mation is not a “fundamental” privilege or immunity of citizenship.