Court opinion issued Apr. 29, 2024

Heritage Found. v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- in case concerning various communications about Timothy Thibault, a former Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, determining that: (1) DOJ properly relied on Exemptions 6 and 7(C) in refusing to confirm or deny the existence of records compiled for law enforcement purposes, but not for administrative records that plaintiff’s request conceivably sought; and (2) DOJ properly withheld—on a categorical basis—records of communications containing the terms “Thibault” and “Grassley” pursuant to Exemptions 6 and 7(C), except as to any responsive administrative records.

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

Court opinions issued Apr. 26, 2024

Accuracy in Media v. DOD (D.D.C.) -- holding that FBI properly relied on Exemption 7(A) to categorically withhold certain FBI interview reports and corresponding handwritten notes of interviews conducted with American personnel who were present during the 2012 Benghazi attacks.

Henderson Parks v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons (N.D. Ill.) -- finding that BOP properly withheld certain records pertaining to the death of plaintiff’s former client while imprisoned pursuant to Exemptions 5, 7(C), (7(E), and 7(F); denying plaintiff’s request for in camera review and for “attorney’s eyes-only” access to withheld records.

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

Court opinion issued Apr. 23, 2024

Juul Labs v. FDA (D.D.C.) -- in case concerning agency’s denial of market approval for plaintiff’s e-cigarette products, concluding that: (1) agency properly relied on Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to withhold certain review memos drafted by agency scientists, as well as one “Technical Project Lead” review memo, but ordering FDA to review records submitted in camera that appeared to contain “purely descriptive” material; and (2) FDA established that disclosure would cause foreseeable harm by confusing the public and chilling agency deliberations.

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

Court opinion issued Apr. 19, 2023

Campaign for Accountability v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- holding that the Office of Legal Counsel’s “formal, written opinions resolving interagency disputes” are subject to FOIA’s reading room provision, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(2)(A) because such opinions are “final opinions . . . made in the adjudications of cases.” In reaching its decision, the court rejected the government’s argument that because OLC opinions may not resolve questions of agency policy, they were not “final” opinions for purposes of section 552(a)(2)(A).

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

Court opinions issued Apr. 10, 2024

Malone v. USPTO (E.D. Va.) -- ruling that: (1) plaintiff could not in litigation expand scope of his original request, which sought certain information about patent cases in which expanded panels were used or in which panels were advised by agency personnel to change their decisions; (2) plaintiff’s request would impermissibly require the agency to conduct research and create new records; and (3) agency was required to process one document concerning expanded panels that was partially responsive to plaintiff’s request.

Col. Wild Pub. Lands v. U.S. Forest Serv. (D.D.C.) -- dismissing case as moot, except with respect to matters relating to attorney’s fees and costs, because agency complied with court’s earlier decision to release certain records to plaintiff; refusing to consider plaintiff’s belated argument that agency has a “systemic policy of delaying the release of records”; and rejecting plaintiff’s various protests about how agency released records, remarking that “[b]y continuing to litigate, it seems [plaintiff] is having a hard time accepting ‘yes’ for an answer.”

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

Court opinion issued Apr. 4, 2024

Abissi. v. USCIS (D. Md.) -- granting government’s motion to transfer case involving asylum records to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia because only two of seven plaintiffs reside in Maryland and the responsive records are maintained in Missouri; rejecting plaintiff’s argument that venue could be established in Maryland based on the Maryland location of the agency’s Asylum Division headquarters.

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

Court opinion issued Mar. 31, 2024

Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- on remand from the D.C. Circuit, holding that: (1) the names of federal contractors who supplied the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) with pentobarbital qualified as commercial information under Exemption 4 because disclosure would reveal that “the contractors have sold a product and/or service to the government, thereby ‘actually reveal[ing] basic commercial operations” of the contractors.’”; (2) BOP established that the disputed contract terms were confidential under Exemption 4 by “showing how the contract terms at issue could be cross-referenced with public information to identify the contractors”; (3).BOP established that foreseeable harm would result from disclosure of the contractors’ names and contract terms by explaining that identified companies are “‘commonly subject to harassment, threats, and negative publicity leading to commercial decline’”; and (4) certain records needed to be reviewed in camera review to resolve whether DOJ had publicly shared withheld information.

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

Court opinions issued Mar. 26-March 29, 2024

Mar. 29, 2024

McKathan v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- deciding that: (1) plaintiff’s request to DHS for all records mentioning his “name, address, phone number, the investigation number listed in a seizure custody receipt, or subscriber or identifying information about U.S.-based users of ‘imgsrc.ru’” was not reasonably described, and plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies; (2) State Department conducted an adequate search in response to plaintiff’s similarly broad request; and (3) denying plaintiff’s request for discovery from DHS and the State Department; denying his request for Vaughn indices from DOJ and EOSUA, which were still processing plaintiff’s requests; and denying an expedited summary judgment schedule.

Mar. 28, 2024

Clay v. Dep’t of the Navy (M.D. Fla.) -- dismissing case as moot after determining that agency had released all previously withheld records disputed by plaintiff.

Staszak v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- finding that plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies with respect to his requests to EOUSA and FBI pertaining to his son’s criminal conviction, noting that plaintiff obtained his son’s express written consent for those agencies to search for and process responsive records only after filing suit.

Mar. 27, 2024

Groenendal v. EOUSA (D.D.C.) -- ruling that (1) EOUSA and ICE performed adequate searches for various records pertaining to plaintiff’s imprisonment on child pornography-related charges; and (2) EOUSA properly withheld certain records pursuant to Exemptions 3, 5, 7(C), and 7(E), and met any applicable foreseeable harm requirement.

Mar. 26, 2024

James Madison Project v. Office of the Dir. of Nat'l Intelligence (D.D.C.) -- on renewed summary judgment, concluding that the government properly redacted a report containing ODNI’s intelligence assessment regarding the source of Havana Syndrome” pursuant to Exemptions 1, 3, and 7(E); stating further that the government “would easily satisfy” the foreseeable harm requirement if plaintiffs had contested it, noting that reasonable foreseeable harm “is always present when the Government properly invokes exemption 1, because significant harm from disclosure is a requirement for classification in the first place.”

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

Court opinion issued Mar. 25, 2024

Zaid v. DOJ (4th Cir. ) -- affirming district court’s decision that FBI properly relied on Exemption 7(A) to withhold records concerning the criminal investigation of plaintiff’s client, who was charged with production and possession of child pornography; remarking that “to hold against the government in this case would set the burden so high as to risk writing the exemption out of the statute.”

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

Court opinions issued Mar. 22, 2024

Hettena v. CIA (D.D.C.) -- ruling that agency’s Office of Inspector General properly relied on Exemptions 1 and 3 to redact information from its report concerning the death of Manadel al-Jamadian, an Iraqi national who was detained for carrying out an October 27, 2003, terrorist attack on Red Cross offices in Baghdad.

Phillips v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- finding that U.S, Customs and Border Protection properly withheld two videos of detainees pursuant to Exemptions 6 and 7(C) and that it could not reasonably segregate and release non-exempt portions; noting that even if a video “that blurred the individuals’ faces and muted the audio might still convey the detainees’ emotional state, it is unclear that that information would be responsive to the FOIA request—and in any event, that marginal information would be substantially outweighed by the excessive costs of redaction.”

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