Court opinion issued Jan. 22, 2024

Phillips v. U.S. Bureau of the Census (S.D.N.Y.) -- denying plaintiff’s request for attorneys’ fees and costs after finding that: (1) plaintiff was eligible for fees and costs because he obtained partial relief from a judicial order, specifically an agency file comparable to the file he requested by a date certain; and (2) plaintiff was not entitled to fees and costs because the agency was preparing to release records well in advance of plaintiff’s request and lawsuit, and because it reasonably denied plaintiff’s request.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2024 are available here. Earlier opinions are available here.

Court opinions issued Jan. 19, 2024

Bonner v. FBI (S.D.N.Y.) -- (1) denying plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration of court’s decision upholding FBI’s Exemption 3 claims regarding records related to Abu Zubaydah’s detention; (2) CIA properly invoked Exemption 3 in conjunction with the National Security Act to protect information, in whole or in part, within 711 redactions made by the FBI pursuant to Exemptions 6 and 7(C); and (3) FBI properly relied on Exemptions 6, 7(C), and 7(E) to withhold certain information not claimed by the CIA to fall under Exemption 3.

Hernandez, Jr. v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- granting summary judgment to government after finding that Executive Office for United States Attorneys performed adequate search, plaintiff received all materials responsive to his request (notwithstanding initial miscounting of pages), and plaintiff did not challenge EOUSA’s redactions.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2024 are available here. Earlier opinions are available here.

Court opinions issued Jan. 18, 2024

Buzzfeed v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- granting government’s partial motion for reconsideration after concluding that plaintiff had failed to brief—and thus waived its right to dispute—the issue of whether Exemption 4 protects the identities of contractors that supply lethal injection drugs to the government; noting that plaintiff’s reply brief expressly stated that the only Exemption 4 issue concerned the withholding of other information; further rejecting plaintiff’s argument that a change in controlling law allowed plaintiff to revive the issue.

Gun Owners of America v. FBI (D.D.C.) -- finding that agency properly relied on Exemption 7(E) to withhold aerial-surveillance video of civil unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August 2020, and that no foreseeable harm analysis was necessary because agency had met Exemption 7(E)’s circumvention of law requirement.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2024 are available here. Earlier opinions are available here.

Court opinion issued Jan. 16, 2024

Bloomberg v. FTC (D.D.C.) -- ruling that: (1) FTC properly withheld all but three portions of its preconsummation warning letters pursuant to Exemption 3, in conjunction with 15 U.S.C. § 18a(h), specifically the identities of business filers that were already in the public domain, the dates of the warning letter; and boilerplate language; and (2) agency failed to show that Exemption 7(A) protected any of the three portions of the disputed letters set forth above.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2024 are available here. Earlier opinions are available here.

Court opinion issued Jan. 12, 2024

Children’s Health Def. v. FDA (D.D.C.) -- granting six-month Open America stay (with possibility of extension) in case concerning records of safety monitoring of COVID-19 vaccines, because agency faced “exceptional circumstances” from an “extraordinary production obligation” imposed by a Texas federal court—specifically 75,000 pages per month in January 2024 and 180,000 pages per month thereafter in response to a FOIA request related to Moderna’s adult COVID-19 vaccine.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2024 are available here. Earlier opinions are available here.

Court opinion issued Jan. 9, 2023

Cato v. FBI (D.D.C.) -- concluding that plaintiff was entitiled to relief from court’s judgment because of “newly discovered evidence” concerning the adequacy of FBI’s search, namely an FBI declaration filed in a 2018 case that contradicted the FBI’s position in the instant case regarding the agency’s Central Records System; reasoning, in part, that the public availability of FBI’s 2018 declaration on PACER was not fatal to plaintiff’s motion, because the declaration was not discoverable by a reasonably diligent search.

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

Court opinions issued Jan. 5, 2023

Freedom Coal. of Doctors for Choice v. CDC (N.D. Tex.) -- determining that plaintiff’s request for 7.8 million free-text responses to agency’s COVID-19 vaccine safety monitoring system would not be unreasonably burdensome for agency to process, because: (1) the volume of the responsive texts would yield between as little as 83 thousand pages and at most 650 thousand pages; (2) CDC conceded that 93 percent of the responses would require no redaction at all; and (3) any necessary redactions of personal identifying information pursuant to Exemption 6 would be “simple” and “capable of automated assistance.”

Project for Privacy & Surveillance Accountability. v. NSA (D.D.C.) -- deciding that: (1) agencies were permitted to issue Glomar responses before conducting searches for requested records of the intelligence community’s acquisition and use of commercially available information pertaining to named Congressmen and former Congressmen; (2) agencies properly relied on Exemptions 1 and 3 in refusing to confirm or deny existence of “operational documents,” but were required to conduct a search for “policy documents.”

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2024 are available here. Earlier opinions are available here.

Court opinions issued Jan. 2, 2024

Checksfield v. IRS (N.D.N.Y.) -- concluding that agency properly invoked Exemption 3, in conjunction with 26 U.S.C. § 6103, in response to plaintiff’s request for personal and business tax returns of third party.

Curry v. FBI (D.D.C.) -- ruling that FBI’s supplemental briefing adequately justified the agency’s withholdings pursuant to Exemptions 3 (Bank Secrecy Act), 7(A), and 7(E), which pro se plaintiff did not oppose.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2024 are available here. Earlier opinions are available here.