Gandhi v. Ctrs. for Medicare & Medicaid Servs. (D.D.C.) -- ruling that: (1) agency improperly relied on Exemption 4 to withhold employer identification numbers (EINs) of health care organization and taxpayer identification numbers (TINs) of their parent organizations, noting that SEC and Department of Labor release EINs to the public and that EINs are available through “pay-for-subscription” services; further noting that CMS failed to offer providers any assurances of confidentiality for their EINs or TINs, and that CMS offered no competent evidence that a foreseeable harm would occur if the requested records were released; and (2) agency’s reliance on Exemption 6 to withhold the same information was likewise improper, because Exemption 6 did not protect privacy interests of business entities.
Del Cid v. EOIR (D.D.C.) -- concluding that plaintiff was ineligible for award of attorney’s fees and costs because he did not prove that his lawsuit was the catalyst behind EOIR’s production of his immigration records; pointing out that agency demonstrated that it had started to process plaintiff’s request before plaintiff filed his lawsuit and that agency’s FOIA backlog and the COVID-19 pandemic delayed its final response.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.