FOIA Advisor

Court opinions issued July 14, 2025

Court Opinions (2025)Ryan MulveyComment

Sharpe v. U.S. Fed. Highway Admin. (9th Cir.) (unpublished)— vacating the district court’s judgment, dismissing appeal as moot, and remanding the case because the agency produced over two thousand pages of documents during appeal after initially refusing to process the request for being too vague.

Wright v. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs. (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion for partial summary judgment in a case about records related to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System; concluding HHS and CDC conducted adequate searches because they were “conducted in good faith and target[ed] the record systems most likely to contain the requested information,” and even involved subject-matter “experts” to help “define search terms”; noting the agencies undertook supplemental search efforts, even though not required, thus demonstrating “responsiveness to [the requester’s] concerns”; accepting the government’s arguments that the requester had tried to expand his request by demanding “unrelated and unduly burdensome” additional searches for communications “with other government agencies and third parties”; reaffirming that “an agency satisfies its FOIA obligations when it provides requesters with information that is already publicly available, especially when the alternative would be to duplicate materials already accessible”; characterizing the requester’s arguments—including those related to searches of personal email accounts—as “mere speculation,” albeit “strongly worded”'; concluding further that the agencies properly withheld information under Exemptions 5 and 6 because the requester “has effectively waived any objection” and the agencies’ “justifications for withholding . . . are adequately supported.”

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinions issued July 8 - July 10, 2025

Court Opinions (2025)Ryan MulveyComment

July 8, 2025

Whitlock v. Dep’t of Def. (D.D.C.) — granting in part the government’s motion for reconsideration and allowing the to reprocess records previously withheld on a categorical basis and ordered to be disclosed, but limiting reprocessing to the applicability of Exemptions 1, 3, 6, 7(C), and 7(E); concluding that one of the D.C. Circuit’s “narrow exceptions” to the general rule requiring assertion of “all FOIA exemptions at the same time” applied here because “the government failed to press additional exemptions in their summary judgment papers due to attorney error; explaining the agency would not, however, be allowed to make new Exemption 5 or Exemption 7(D) arguments (except with respect to the identity of a confidential source) because it has “not sufficiently explained how releas[e] . . . would compromise national security, infringe on third parties’ privacy or safety, or otherwise be harmful or unfair.”

July 9, 2025

Jackson v. HHS (D. Nev.) -- setting aside its dismissal of plaintiff claim and reopening case for good cause, because plaintiff had filed an opposition to government’s motion to dismiss prior to court’s ruling and only one day after the filing deadline—which plaintiff reportedly misread.

July 10, 2025

Becker v. Department of the Navy (D.D.C.) — granting in part and denying in part the agency’s motion for summary judgment; concluding the Navy properly withheld material under Exemption 3, which was concurrently withheld under Exemptions 6 and 7(C), whose use was not challenged by the requester; deferring judgment on the propriety of the agency’s use of Exemptions 5 and 7(E) pending its reprocessing of certain records and, if needed, renewed summary judgment cross-motions.

Pearce v. Department of the Army (D.D.C.) — granting the Army’s motion for summary judgment in a joint-FOIA/Privacy Act case concerning records of EEOC administrative proceedings; concluding, in relevant part, that the agency properly applied Exemption 5, in conjunction with the attorney-client, attorney work-product, and deliberative-process privileges, as well as Exemptions 7(C) and 7(D); holding the Army’s disclosure of certain privileged records during discovery in EEOC proceedings did not waive privilege for purposes of the FOIA; further holding the Army properly treated the requester’s own “summary judgment motion and certain deposition exhibits . . . [containing] information about a settlement proposal and draft settlement agreement” as protected by the deliberative-process privilege; recognizing the Exemption 7 threshold is met and that documents from EEOC administrative proceedings qualify as records compiled for “law enforcement” purposes; interestingly failing to offer any analysis on the Army’s satisfaction of the foreseeable-harm standard for all of the asserted statutory exemptions.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

New OIP Commentary on Executive Order 14303

FOIA News (2025)Ryan MulveyComment

New Executive Order on “Gold Standard Science”: FOIA Implications

Dep’t of Justice, Office of Info. Pol’y, The FOIA Post (July 9, 2025)

On May 23, 2025, President Trump issued a new Executive Order No. 14303, “Restoring Gold Standard Science.”  This Executive Order is “committed to restoring a gold standard for science to ensure that federally funded research is transparent, rigorous, and impactful, and that Federal decisions are informed by the most credible, reliable, and impartial scientific evidence available.”[1]  The Executive Order includes a provision that requires agencies to proactively make publicly available certain scientific information.

[. . .]

In short, these are the Executive Order’s disclosure-related takeaways:

  • The Executive Order requires proactive public disclosure of “influential scientific information” as well as models and analyses used to generate that information.

  • Such information cannot be withheld from disclosure pursuant to FOIA Exemption 5 absent notice to OSTP and approval from the agency head.

  • However, non-discretionary FOIA exemptions including Exemptions 1, 3, 4, 6, and 7(C) should still be applied to such information where appropriate.

  • Risk models for agency enforcement actions are not subject to the disclosure requirements of the Executive Order.

[. . .]

FOIA personnel should be made aware of the new public disclosure requirements in the Executive Order and should consult with their General Counsel’s Office for any questions regarding implementation of these requirements. Questions regarding the applicability of the FOIA to information subject to the Executive Order may also be directed to OIP.

Read the full blog post here.

Court opinions issued July 1-3, 2025

Court Opinions (2025)Ryan MulveyComment

July 1, 2025

Della Rocca v. U.S. Postal Serv. (D.D.C.) — in a case concerning records about the shipping of election ballots, granting the agency’s renewed motion for summary judgment; holding that the Postal Service’s search was reasonable; noting the agency’s supplemental declaration addressed “gaps the Court identified in its previous order,” such as the agency’s “clarified understanding of the scope” of the requests at issue, and its search of various computer systems; describing the plaintiff’s counter-arguments as amounting to “pure speculation” about the existence of additional records; noting also that the plaintiff could not demonstrate how the agency supposedly “acted in bad faith.”  

July 3, 2025

Ctr. for Immigration Studies v. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs. (D.D.C.) — granting the plaintiff’s cross-motion for summary judgment; holding that HHS failed to conduct an adequate search for records reflecting the “zip code for each sponsor associated with [any] unaccompanied alien child that the agency could not reach after [a] ‘safety and wellbeing call’”; surmising, based on media reports, that the agency, after liberally construing the request and considering the plaintiff’s clarification (i.e., “additional ‘helpful’ information”), should have “produced a list of tens of thousands [of] zip code, including the same zip code multiple times when more than one child potentially resided within that area”; rejecting HHS’s alternative “hypothetical” invocation of Exemption 6 and casting doubt on whether it could actually succeed.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

Monthly roundup: June 2025

Monthly Roundup (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

Below is a summary of the notable FOIA court decisions and news from last month, as well as a look ahead to FOIA events in July.

Court decisions

We identified and posted 16 opinions in June—twice as many as in May. Two cases are worth revisiting. In FOIAConsciousness.com v. NARA (N.D. Cal., June 30, 2025), which involved a request for a copy of the Zapruder film, the court blessed NARA’s three-part access scheme: (1) providing viewing access in Maryland and allowing copies to be made for requester’s own use; (2) allowing requester to hire an individual to visit Maryland to make self-serve copies; and (3) allowing requesters to order copies through selected vendors, but requiring permission from any copyright holders that may exist. The court reasoned that vendor-facilitated copies were not “readily reproducible” in the absence of a copyright holder’s permission. The second notable case is S. Envtl. Law Ctr. v. Tenn. Valley Auth. (E.D. Tenn.), which curiously relied on a non-FOIA case in deciding that plaintiff lacked standing to pursue a FOIA claim on the grounds that it failed to present sufficient evidence of its purported informational injury.

Although excluded from our opinions list, we note that the U.S. Supreme Court issued a two-page order on June 6th that limited discovery in a FOIA case against DOGE.

Top news

  • Amtrak became the first agency to propose amendments to their FOIA regulations since President Trump took office on January 20, 2025.

  • The federal FOIA Advisory Committee met on June 12, 2025, and it is now less than one year away from completing its term on June 11, 2026.

  • Bill Moyers, an influential journalist and early FOIA supporter, died at age 91.

July events

July 4: FOIA signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1966, effective one year later.

July 10: DOJ/OIP. Privacy Consideration Training.

July 15: DOJ/OIP. Continuing Freedom of Information Act Education Training.

July 23: OGIS annual public meeting

July 25: Agency FY25 Q3 Data Due.

July 28-30: Management Concepts, The Privacy Act and The Freedom of Information Act Training.

July 30: Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Navigating FOIA and Records Requests.

Court opinion issued June 30, 2025

Court Opinions (2025)Ryan MulveyComment

Animal Partisan v. Fed. Bureau of Investigation (D.D.C.) — denying requester’s fee motion; concluding that, while the requester “has established its eligibility for attorneys’ fees and costs [under the “catalyst” theory] . . . it has not demonstrated that it is entitled to such fees”; noting the “information obtained” by the requester “appears only marginally” likely to benefit the public because “many of the records sought were likely already in the public domain”; noting further that the FBI “was neither recalcitrant in its opposition nor obdurate in its behavior,” “promptly turned over the requested records” after the lawsuit was filed, and even conducted supplemental searches upon request; concluding, on the whole, that the agency “had a reasonable basis for initially withholding . . . under Exemption 7(A),” too.

FOIAConsciousness.com v. NARA (N.D. Cal.) -- holding that NARA did not violate FOIA by requiring plaintiff to submit proof of permission from a copyright holder—in this case, the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, Texas— before facilitating the copying of the copyrighted Zapruder film “because such copies, of which NARA facilitates the reproduction, are not “readily reproducible” in the absence of permission; further, reasoning that plaintiff “did not identify anything in FOIA or the caselaw to indicate that Congress intended a records designation to trump copyrights held by third parties,” and that plaintiff “also did not say why FOIA would require agencies to produce copies in a manner that would open them up to liability under the copyright laws.”

[RPM: For those you might be interested, FOIA Advisor’s own Ryan Mulvey filed an amicus brief on behalf of Americans for Prosperity Foundation in the Sixth Circuit last month, which addresses, in relevant part, the interaction of the FOIA and the Copyright Act, and concludes that copyright claims can’t be used as grounds for withholding.]

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.