Court opinions issued May 20, 2020

Rodriguez v. FBI (D.D.C.) -- granting government’s unopposed summary judgment motion after concluding that FBI performed adequate search for records concerning plaintiff’s criminal case and that it properly withheld records pursuant to Exemptions 3, 5, 6, 7(A), 7(C), 7(D), 7(E), and 7(F).

Rutila v. DOT (N.D. Tex.) -- accepting findings and recommendations of magistrate judge that FAA performed adequate search and properly withheld records pursuant to Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege.

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

Court opinions issued May 19, 2020

Citizens United v. U.S Dep’t of State (D.D.C.) -- concluding that with the exception of relatively minor redactions on two documents, State Department justified its withholdings to Christopher Steele-related documents pursuant to Exemptions 1 and 3.

White v. DOJ (S.D. Ill.) -- determining that: (1) plaintiff failed to reasonably describe requests sent to FBI, ATF, and U.S. Marshals Service for records relating to white supremacist groups; (2) FBI performed adequate search for records concerning other white supremacist groups or was reasonably producing records at rate of 500 pages monthly; (3) FBI, ATF, and USMS properly refused to confirm or deny existence of records concerning third-party individuals; (4) USMS was processing or had already processed records concerning plaintiff despite initial delay and court would not retain jurisdiction over claim; and (5) BOP performed adequate searches for records concerning plaintiff and properly withheld records pursuant to Exemption 5, 6, 7(C), 7(E), and 7(F).

Hutchins v, EOUSA (D.D.C.) -- finding that EOUSA performed adequate search for grand jury records pertaining to plaintiff’s drug conspiracy conviction in 1996.

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

Court opinions issued May 18, 2020

Doyle v. DHS (2nd Cir. 2020) -- affirming district court’s decision that that visitor logs for White House and President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home are not “agency records” of the U.S. Secret Service, relying on D.C. Circuit’s 2013 opinion in Judicial Watch v. U.S. Secret Service.

District of Columbia v, ICE (D.D.C.) -- ruling that ICE properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to redact personal identifying information from records generated by agency’s arrest of twelve individuals in July 2018.

LaVictor v. Trump (D.D.C.) -- dismissing claims against three DOJ components because plaintiff offered no evidence that he had submitted requests, and dismissing claim against Federal Bureau of Prisons because plaintiff failed to appeal from agency’s 2016 adverse determination.

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

Court opinion issued May 14, 2020

Bloche v. DOD (D.D.C.) -- on renewed summary judgment, which plaintiffs did not dispute, ruling that: (1) Department of the Army properly relied on deliberative process and attorney-client privileges to withhold records concerning involvement of medical professionals in designing interrogation tactics; (2) Defense Intelligence Agency properly relied on Exemptions 1, 3, and/or 5 to withhold summary of trip taken to assess interrogation operations at Guantanamo Bay; and (3) Joint Task Force Guantanamo properly withheld records pursuant to Exemption 7(E).

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

Court opinion issued May 11, 2020

Reyes v. U.S. Dep’t of the Interior (S.D. Cal.) -- concluding that: (1) Bureau of Indian Affairs performed adequate search for tribal membership and genealogy records concerning deceased family member; (2) agency properly relied on Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to withhold records concerning its processing of plaintiff’s FOIA request; and (3) plaintiff arguably asserted “policy-and-practice” claim, but neither party moved for summary judgment on that issue.

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

Court opinion issued May 7, 2020

Buzzfeed Inc. v. FBI (D.D.C.) -- ruling that FBI properly relied on Exemption 5’s presidential communications privilege to withhold its supplementary background investigation file of Brett Kavanaugh, and that the privilege was not waived when file was shared with Senate Judiciary Committee.

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

Court opinion issued May 1, 2020

Aguirre v. U.S. Nuclear Reg. Comm’n (S.D. Cal.) dismissing plaintiff’s amended complaint because plaintiff failed to show that he had appealed agency’s initial adverse response.

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

FOIA News: Affirmance or reversal? DOJ appellate brief goes both ways.

The Department of Justice was forced to file a corrected brief in the D.C. Circuit after learning that the conclusion section of its brief mistakenly asked the court to affirm, rather than to reverse, the district court’s decision in Cable News Network v. FBI. Slip of the tongue or use of template language gone awry?

Court opinions issued Apr. 30, 2020

NY Times v. FCC (S.D.N.Y) -- finding that agency improperly relied on Exemption 6 to withhold certain server log data associated with electronic submission of public comments regarding agency’s proposal to repeal “net neutrality” rules; further finding that agency failed to demonstrate that producing requested information was unreasonably burdensome.

Rodriguez v. EOUSA (D.D.C.) -- concluding that agency performed adequate search for records of grand jury that indicted plaintiff, but that agency’s Vaughn Index did not provide sufficient information for court to determine propriety of agency’s use of Exemption 3 to withhold all records.

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

Court opinions issued Apr. 28, 2020

Scott v. IRS (S.D. Fla.) denying plaintiff’s request for discovery because plaintiff failed to follow applicable discovery rules, failed to show any bad faith by the agency, and the request was overbroad, vague in part, and fell outside scope of limited discovery sometimes permitted in FOIA cases.

Zavalunov v. BOP (M.D. Pa.) -- ruling that Federal Bureau of Prisons performed adequate search for requested ICE detainer and properly redacted third party information pursuant to Exemptions 6 and 7(C).

Strahan v. NOAA (D. N.H.) -- concluding that plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies for six of seven of his requests, and that agency was not required to create excel spreadsheet containing information that was publicly available on website.

Colgan v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- remanding matter to FBI after finding that: (1) agency failed to perform reasonable search in response to plaintiff’s 30-part request; and (2) agency’s Vaughn Index lacked sufficient detail to permit review of claimed exemptions and sampled documents had 64 percent error rate.

DBW Partners v. USPS (D.D.C.) -- determining that USPS properly relied on Exemption 3 in conjunction with the Postal Reorganization Act to withhold large portions of Inspector General report concerning USPS’s resellers program and negotiated service agreements, but ordering release of certain portions after performing in camera review.

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