People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. HHS (D.D.C.) -- determining that: (1) National Institutes for Health performed reasonable search for emails concerning certain animal experiments even though additional search terms were used for one custodian; (2) NIH adequately explained why it excluded as “non-responsive” 119 pages that it initially processed; (3) NIH properly relied on Exemption 6 to withhold private email account, personal travel plans, and identifying information of unpaid outside consultants; and (4) NIH failed to show that deliberative process privilege applied to agency communications about how to respond to plaintiff’s request for a meeting.

Campaign Legal Ctr. v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- finding that: (1) Justice Management Division (JMD) performed adequate search for records mentioning two Bureau of the Census employees or eight census-related terms, but Civil Rights Division (CRT) did not; (2) CRT and Office of Information Policy (OIP) failed to show that records were properly withheld pursuant to presidential communications privilege; (3) CRT and OIP properly relied on deliberative process privilege to withheld only a few contested categories of records, and JMD failed to provide sufficient information to justify its deliberative process claims; and (4) OIP improperly relied on attorney work-product privilege to withhold draft responses to interrogatories from U.S. Commission on Civil Rights..

Kowal v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- concluding that Drug Enforcement Administration conducted reasonable search pertaining to third party’s prosecution, but that deficiencies in DEA’s Vaughn Index did not enable court to assess validity of agency’s withholdings under Exemptions 6, 7(C) 7(D),7(E), and 7(F).

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.