Hyatt v. U.S Patent & Trade Office (D.D.C.) -- ruling that: (1) agency properly denied plaintiff’s request for waiver of fees arising from request for records concerning plaintiff’s patent applications, because plaintiff failed to show that records would advance public understanding of agency operations; and (2) administrative record did not adequately support agency’s determination that plaintiff’s request fell within commercial use fee category, and remanding to agency for further action; declining to decide whether standard of review should be de novo or “arbitrary and capricious."
Am. Oversight v. HHS (D.D.C.) -- on review of Magistrate Judge’s report and recommendation, holding that: (1) judge did not clearly err in finding that U.S. House committee was a proper defendant-intervenor and that court had subject matter jurisdiction, rejecting plaintiff’s “counter-intuitive theory“ that the Committee was required to seek injunction against government defendants; (2) judge did not clearly err in finding that HHS performed adequate search for records regarding health care reform legislation; (3) agency properly relied on Exemption 5’s consultant corollary to withhold records of communications with Congress, except for certain factual information; (4) HHS was required to submit additional affidavit clarifying with certainty whether or not talking points were adopted as the agency’s position or were later used and shared outside the agency; (5) OMB was required to disclose names of attendees and locations of meetings; and (6) judge did not clearly err in denying plaintiff’s requests for in camera review and discovery.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.