Court opinions issued June 1, 2016

Gahagan v. U.S. Customs & Border Prot. (E.D. La.) -- awarding attorney fees and costs after determining that plaintiff substantially prevailed in lawsuit, but reducing requested fee amount by more than half due to attorney's excessive hourly rate and poor billing judgment.

Pinson v. U.S. Dep't of Justice (D.D.C.) -- granting summary judgment to Executive Office for United State Attorneys with respect to six requests submitted by pro se inmate (all involving search or fee issues), but denying EOUSA's motions concerning five other requests.   

Ctr. for Digital Democracy v. Fed. Trade Comm'n (D.D.C.) -- ruling that the FTC properly relied upon Exemptions 3 and 4 to redact confidential business information from annual reports submitted to the agency by "safe harbor programs." 

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here. 

Court opinion issued May 31, 2016

McAtee v. U.S. Dep't of Homeland Sec. (D. Mont.) -- holding that the U.S. Secret Service conducted a reasonable search for plaintiff's criminal case file and properly redacted third party information under Exemptions 6 and 7(C), but that agency's Vaughn Index did not provide sufficient information to permit the court to determine whether grand jury-related records were protected under Exemption 3.

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here. 

Court opinion issued May 27, 2016

Williams v. U.S. Dept. of Justice (D. Md.) -- ruling that plaintiff's "sweeping" requests for records concerning his enslaved ancestors over a 600-year period were too broad and non-specific to permit agencies to conduct searches; further ruling that FOIA did not permit the court to award plaintiff damages for his relatives' enslavement.    

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.

Court opinions issued May 25, 2016

Shapiro v. U.S. Dep't of Justice (D.D.C.) -- granting in part and denying part FBI's motion to reconsider court's April 8, 2016 opinion that permitted agency to raise certain -- but not all -- exemptions for first time in litigation.  In reaching its decision, the court held that D.C. Circuit's case law does not permit the government to advance new FOIA exemptions absent a showing of good cause,

Nat'l Sec. Counselors v. Cent. Intelligence Agency (D.D.C.) -- awarding plaintiff $55,050 for attorney fees and $505 in costs for partially prevailing in FOIA litigation; reducing amount of fees requested by 40 percent (from $91,750), because (1) the fee request included unsuccessful claims, (2) the billing records were not contemporaneous, lacked details, and included duplicative work, and (3) the hourly rates were excessive.    

Daniels v. Soc. Sec. Admin. (9th Cir.) -- affirming district court's decision that agency provided appellant with all responsive records to which he was entitled under the Privacy Act and FOIA; rejecting appellant's argument that agency was required to cite Privacy Act exemptions in order to withhold documents not contained in a "system of records."  

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.

Court opinion issued May 24, 2016

Rosiere v. United States (10th Cir.) -- affirming district court's dismissal of plaintiff's FOIA lawsuit in Colorado because plaintiff filed lawsuits in Nevada and New Jersey seeking identical documents.  The Tenth Circuit rejected plaintiff's argument that section 552(7)(A) permits a requester to sue for identical FOIA requests in two separate courts so long as each FOIA request is made on a separate date and assigned an individualized tracking number. 

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here. 

Court opinion issued May 20, 2016

Sack v. U.S. Dep't of Def. (D.C. Cir.) -- reversing district court's holding that a Ph.D. student was ineligible for reduced FOIA fees as an "education institution."  In reaching its ruling, the D.C. Circuit stated that the government's distinction between teachers -- who are eligible for reduced fees under OMB's 1987 fee guidance -- and students was "entirely unexplained and unpersuasive."  With respect to the polygraph records requested by plaintiff, the D.C. Circuit affirmed the district's decision that such records were protected from disclosure under Exemption 7(E). 

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here. 

Court opinion issued May 12, 2016

Johnson v. Fed. Bureau of Investigation (E.D. Pa.) -- ordering FBI to disclose its investigatory file of a death row inmate to plaintiff's counsel, because the agency failed to demonstrate that all responsive records were necessarily covered by Exemption 7(A); further ordering plaintiff's attorney to propose to court which documents it wished to share with others, including plaintiff, an investigator whose office represented death row inmate.      

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here. 

Court opinion issued May 10, 2016

Raimondo v. Fed. Bureau of Investigation (N.D. Cal.) -- ruling that the FBI failed to sufficiently demonstrate how the records it maintained on an anti-war website met the law enforcement threshold for purposes of Exemption 7, or -- even if they met that threshold -- how they were exempt under Exemptions 7(C) or 7(E).  

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here. 

Court opinion issued May 9, 2016

Competitive Enter. Inst. v. Office of Sci. & Tech. Policy (D.D.C.) -- granting plaintiff limited discovery concerning the agency's search because the court found the agency's representations about the scope and completeness of the search to be "inaccurate time and again."

See also news article by FedSmith.  

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here. 

Court opinion issued May 4, 2016

Rogers v. Internal Revenue Serv. (6th Cir.) -- affirming district court's decision that plaintiff was precluded from maintaining a FOIA action due to a "release clause" contained in previously executed settlement agreement with the IRS.  A dissenting opinion asserted that the FOIA action should not have been dismissed, because the IRS failed to raise the release clause as a defense until it filed a summary judgment motion one year after the lawsuit began.   

Summaries of all opinions issued since April 2015 available here.