Stevens v. HHS (N.D. Ill.) -- on renewed summary judgment, holding that: (1) government was not required to file a motion under Rule 60(b) seeking relief from court’s prior summary judgment ruling because the court had not entered final judgment; (2)(a) the Executive Office for Immigration Review’s supplemental search for emails about third parties was inadequate because the agency failed to explain why it did not use the subjects’ A-numbers as search terms; and (b) EOIR unreasonably limited its search to a five-year period where plaintiff asked for decade’s worth of records and the agency’s record retention period is seven years; (3) EOIR was not required to release deduplicated records, rejecting plaintiff’s argument that deduplication is a per se FOIA violation; (4) EOIR was not required to produce an “irreparably damaged” audio recording that could not be copied; (5) EOIR’s referral of emails to DHS was not improper; and (6) EOIR’s “short description” of its withholdings under Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege were insufficient to carry agency’s burden.
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