Court opinion issued Mar. 10, 2024

Wash. Lawyers' Comm. For civil Rights & Urban Affairs v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- ruling that: (1) plaintiff was not required to exhaust administrative remedies to maintain a pattern-or-practice claim alleging delays in responses by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to counsel requests for client records; (2) government was entitled to summary judgment on plaintiff’s pattern-or-practice claim because plaintiff failed to rebut defendant’s evidence that it did not have a policy or practice of violating FOIA; and (3) in the interest f judicial economy, plaintiff’s 39 individual FOIA requests would severed (with one exception), requiring plaintiff to refile them as separate actions.

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

Court opinions issued Mar. 7-8, 2024

Mar. 8, 2024

Maritime Documentation Ctr. Corp. v. U.S. Coast Guard (9th Cir.) (unpublished) -- affirming district court’s decision granting summary judgment to agency with respect to its Exemption 6 redactions of personally identifiable information of owners of Coast Guard-registered vessels.

Stevens v. Broad. Bd. of Governors (N.D. Ill.) -- denying plaintiff an award of attorney’s fees because: (1) the court’s supervision of agencies’ search, review, and production of responsive documents occurred while plaintiff was pro se; and (2) documents produced after plaintiff’s attorney filed an appearance were not produced pursuant to court order, all but two of 12 agencies produced all of their records before the attorney’s appearance, and plaintiff’s appearance did not prompt production of records from those two agencies.

Jordan v. DEA (D.D.C.) -- concluding that agency properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to withhold the names of agency agents involved in plaintiff’s criminal investigation.

Mar. 7, 2024

WP Co. v. CIA (D.D.C.) -- finding that: (1) CIA failed to adequately explain how it searched for 56 “CIA Histories,” and it failed to perform a promised supplemental search; (2) CIA properly withheld certain records pursuant to Exemption 1, but did not establish “how the apparently innocuous information that [plaintiff] has identified could cause the harms that the CIA asserts; (3) CIA failed to show how release of information withheld under Exemption 3 in conjunction with the National Security Act could harm national security; (4) CIA properly withheld information pursuant to Exemption 3 in conjunction with the CIA Act, as well as identifying information of third parties pursuant to Exemption 6.

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

Court opinions issued Mar. 6, 2024

United for FBI Integrity v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- ruling that: (1) DOJ improperly issued Exemption 6 and 7(C) Glomar responses as to the existence of records that concern former FBI employee’s role in the loss of plaintiff’s security clearance and any records about allegations that the SAC violated plaintiff’s constitutional rights; and (2) DOJ properly issued Exemption 6 and 7(C) Glomar responses as to the existence of various records concerning sexual misconduct allegedly committed by the same former FBI employee.

Scarlett v. OIG (D.D.C.) -- on renewed summary judgment, deciding that National Science Foundation’s Office of Inspector General reasonably described its search for records pertaining to plaintiff or her company.

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

Court opinions Mar. 1, 2024

Leopold v. DOJ (D.C. Cir.) -- reversing and remanding district court’s decision because neither the agency nor the lower court fully addressed whether the disclosure of information withheld from an independent monitor’s report under Exemption 8 met the statute’s foreseeable harm test.

Tobias v. U.S. Dep't of the Interior (D.D.C.) -- ruling that agency properly relied on Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to withhold internal agency communications concerning how to respond to arguments in a permit applicant’s white paper, and that the agency adequately demonstrated foreseeable harm.

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

Court opinion issued Feb. 29, 2024

US Right to Know v. Nat'l Nuclear Sec. Admin. (D.N.M.) -- determining that agency performed reasonable search for records pertaining to the origin of COVID-19 and/or SARS-CoV-2.

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

Court opinion issued Feb. 27, 2024

Nat’l Assoc. of Minority Veterans v. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs (D.D.C.) -- following in camera review, ruling that: (1) agency did not forfeit right to invoke exemptions on renewed summary judgment, because the only issue argued on initial briefing was adequacy of the agency’s search (which located no records); (2) “most—but not all—of the information redacted by the VA could create “a reasonably expected risk” of circumvention of the law if released,” thus warranting agency’s Exemption 7(E) claims; (3) agency’s survey questions and responses fell within the deliberative process privilege, but agency’s general contentions that disclosure would ”stifle” communications and cause “public confusion” failed to meet the foreseeable harm test.

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

Court opinion issued Feb. 21, 2024

AMA Sys. v. FDA (D. Md.) -- concluding that: (1) with exception of one email authored by FDA, agency properly invoked Exemption 4 to withhold its file concerning company’s unsuccessful application to produce single-use surgical masks as personal protective equipment during COVID pandemic; (2) agency was not required to meet the foreseeable harm test because all information protected under Exemption 4 was barred from disclosure under the Trade Secrets Act.

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

Court opinions issued Feb. 20, 2024

Louise Trauma Ctr. v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- dismissing remaining portion of plaintiff’s case after holding that plaintiff’s request for “all records concerning” a DHS research unit was “too amorphous to constitute a valid FOIA request.”

McWatters v. ATF (D.D.C.) -- on renewed summary judgment, finding that ATF properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to withhold portion of a tape recording made by one of the 100 victims of a Rhode Island nightclub fire in 2003; crediting ATF declaration that faint human voices could be heard on the recording and that surviving family of the deceased had privacy interests even if voices could not be attributed to specific victims; further, rejecting plaintiff’s asserted public interest as nothing more “than having the information for its own sake,” similar to case involving the recording of the last minutes of NASA’s Challenger shuttle.

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

Court opinions issued Feb. 16, 2024

Feb. 16, 2024

Insider, Inc. v.. GSA (D.C. Cir.) -- affirming district court’s decision that GSA properly invoked Exemption 6 to withhold the names of several low-level members of President Trump’s and Vice President Pence’s outgoing transition teams; reasoning that such individuals were not government employees, disclosure would not shed light on GSA activities, and the mere possibility that such individuals might be aware of government conduct was too speculative to qualify as a public interest.

US Inventor, Inc. v. USPTO (D.D.C.) -- ruling that Patent & Trade office performed reasonable searches for various records concerning a vacant Director’s position.

Geddis v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- determining that plaintiff failed to rebut evidence that agency never received his request, which was indisputably sent but misaddressed.

Protect the Public’s Trust v. IRS (D.D.C.) -- holding that: (1) plaintiff was eligible for attorney’s fees because IRS thrice refused to search for requested records and it changed its position only after plaintiff filed suit and the court ordered the filing of a dispositive motion; rejecting agency’s argument that a plaintiff cannot substantially prevail without obtaining responsive records, and (2) plaintiff was entitled to fees and its requested fee amount was reasonable, especially given the “interesting legal questions” raised by the request for fees.

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

Court opinions issued Feb. 13-14, 2024

Feb. 14, 2024

Sherven v. Nat’l Reconnaissance Office (D.D.C.) -- granting government’s summary judgment motion after finding that NRO performed reasonable search for records pertaining to plaintiff, including records of any use of spy satellites against him.

Feb. 13, 2024

Am. for Prosperity Found. v. CMS (D.D.C.) -- deciding that: (1) all of D.C. Circuit’s requirements for relying on an ex parte declaration had been met; and (2) agency sufficiently demonstrated that three-decades old information protected by the attorney-client privileged met the foreseeable harm test.

Anthony v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons (D.D.C.) -- concluding that: (1) BOP properly relied on Exemptions 6 and 7(C) in refusing to confirm or deny the existence of records concerning correctional officer’s misconduct; and (2) BOP properly redacted the names of employees from plaintiff’s administrative complaints pursuant to Exemption 6.

Black Hills Clean Water All. v. United States Forest Serv. (D.S.D.) -- in consolidated cases involving motions for attorney’s fees, ruling that: (1) plaintiff was both eligible and entitled to attorney’s fees in first case, which the agency did not contest; and (2) plaintiff’s lawsuit was unnecessary to obtain requested records in second case, and thus plaintiff was ineligible for attorney’s fees.

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