Bernegger v. EOUSA (D.D.C.) -- concluding that EOUSA properly denied plaintiff’s fee waiver request associated with his request for access to his prosecution and conviction records.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Am. Civil Liberties Union Found. of N.H. v. U.S. Customs & Border Prot. (D.N.H.) -- ordering agency to file supplemental declaration addressing the scope of its search and why it found certain records to be non-responsive to plaintiff’s request, but ruling that agency’s original declaration and Vaughn Index provided court with sufficient information to evaluate agency’s segregability determinations.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Graham v. DHS (E.D. Cal.) -- holding that plaintiff’s claim was not time-barred when he filed suit exactly 6 years after ICE issued its second (and final) administrative appeal response, because —in the court's view -- the agency's timely-issued remand of plaintiff's first administrative appeal prevented plaintiff from exhausting his administrative remedies and thus delayed the accrual of his claim.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Graham v. FBI (D.D.C.) -- granting summary judgment to government after finding that plaintiff failed to identify any public policy harms that would override criminal justice interests favoring enforcement of plaintiff’s voluntary waiver of FOIA rights in his plea agreement.
Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. U.S. Dep’t of State (D.D.C.) -- deciding that: (1) agency did not submit sufficient information to permit court to evaluate whether agency properly invoked Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to withhold two categories of records concerning its handling of requests from congressional committee chairs; and (2) agency improperly redacted “simple statistics” and other factual information from weekly report that did not fall within deliberative process privilege or meet foreseeable harm provision.
Saterlee v. IRS (W.D. Mo.) -- ruling that: (1) agency performed adequate search, except in one instance, for various certificate of assessments and notices of federal tax liens concerning plaintiff; (2) agency failed to prove that it properly withheld employee’s oath of office pursuant to Exemption 6, but it properly used same exemption to withhold other records from employee’s personnel file.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Stonehill v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- in case involving investigatory records of plaintiff’s deceased husband’s business in the Philippines, concluding that: (1) Tax Division was permitted to amend its Answer to add res judicata defense, but rejecting agency’s defense on merits concerning request for “records from 1957-1976 concerning Mr. Stonehill”; (2) rejecting Tax Division’s res judicata defense to request concerning Philippine’s national bureau of investigations; (3) ordering agency to complete processing of request that it neglected for three years—which the court called “unacceptable”—and to justify any withholdings on renewed summary judgment; (4) Tax Division performed adequate search for records concerning government consultant, but finding agency’s earlier errors “troubling” and urging agency to take “greater care in the future”; (5) Tax Division properly relied on Exemptions 5, 6, and 7(C) to withhold some, but not all, records identified in the Tax Division’s opening brief and rejecting plaintiff’s assertion of government misconduct exception; and (6) Tax Division failed to justify its Exemption 5 withholdings for records located after it filed its opening brief and denying agency’s request to submit sampling Vaughn Index.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Smith v. EOUSA (S.D.N.Y.) -- determining that agency performed adequate search for records concerning plaintiff’s transfer between state and federal custody in 2011 and that it properly withheld grand jury records pursuant to Exemption 3 in conjunction with Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e).
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Junk v. Bd. of Governors of Fed. Reserve Sys. (2nd Cir.) (summary order) -- affirming district court’s decision that agency performed adequate search for “‘records from Maiden Lane LLC and Maiden Lane II LLC and Maiden Lane III LLC containing’ a specific nine-digit alphanumeric Committee on Uniform Security Identification Procedures ("CUSIP") number.”
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Am. Civil Liberties Union v. CIA (2nd Cir.) -- reversing district court’s decision requiring disclosure of certain information contained in a draft summary of CIA’s former detention and interrogation program and holding that such information was protected under Exemption 1.
Am. Civil Liberties Union v. CIA (D.D.C) -- concluding that agency properly relied on Exemptions 1, 3, 5, and 6 to withhold records concerning nomination of Gina Haspel to serve as CIA’s Director.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Woodard v. USMS (D.D.C.) -- following in camera review of records concerning agency’s use of cell phone technology in apprehending plaintiff for capital murder, finding that agency properly redacted names of law enforcement officers under Exemption 7(C) and that its use of Exemption 7(C), 7(E), 7(D), and 7(F) to redact or fully withhold other records was justified in some instances and not others.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Louise Trauma Ctr. v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- holding that: (1) DOJ failed to provide sufficient information to permit court to determine propriety of agency’s reliance on Exemption 5’s attorney-client, attorney work-product, and deliberative process privileges to withhold certain appellate training material; and (2) Civil Division performed adequate search for studies and analyses of the “foreseeable harm” standard of the 2016 FOIA Improvement Act.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.