Court opinions
2025
Dates of decisions below. Please contact us if any of the links are broken. For additional sources of FOIA case law, see "Federal court cases" in Useful Links.
Mar. 31, 2025
Campaign Legal Ctr. v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — in a case concerning records about the addition of a “citizenship question” to the census, granting in part and denying in part the parties’ renewed cross-motions for summary judgment on remand; holding that a “10-page email thread between DOJ, Commerce, and White House staff” was properly withheld under Exemption 5 and the deliberative-process privilege, despite post-dating the decision to add the citizenship question to the census, because it was “‘not so much [intended] to explain the agency’s already-decided policy,’ but an ‘iterative weighing of legal and policy concerns’”; holding further that records reflecting discussions about a response to the Washington Post, draft correspondence with a Member of Congress, and inter-agency correspondence were all similarly protected by the deliberative-process privilege; declining, however, to accept the adequacy of the agency’s arguments for the privilege as applied to internal e-mail regarding the census and American Community Survey; noting the agency’s declarations do not “describe the withheld emails with sufficient particularity,” and “[a] one-paragraph explanation without detail, or the document itself [submitted for in camera review], is insufficient”; finally, holding that, while the agency could technically satisfy the requirements to withhold draft responses to interrogatories from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights under Exemption 5, it had failed to meet the foreseeable-harm standard by not connecting “two comments . . . about two lines of a 24-page” document to the asserted “broader harm of weakened inter agency relationships” or the internal “chill” of agency deliberations.
Webb v. Office of Mgmt. & Budget (D.D.C.) — in a case brought by a “highly vexatious [pro se] litigant,” granting, in relevant part, the government’s motion for summary judgment; holding that OMB conducted an adequate search, and rejecting the plaintiff’s arguments that the agency improperly “characterized his FOIA request as implicating classified records” and failed to locate “records indicating that COVID-19 originated in a laboratory”; noting the plaintiff’s “unsubstantiated assertion that there must be records indicating that COVID-19 originated in a laboratory is the kind of ‘purely speculative claim[] about the existence and discoverability of other documents’ that cannot rebut the presumption of good faith accorded to detailed agency affidavits describing a search.”
Soliman v. Threat Screening Ctr. (D.D.C.) — granting the agency’s motion for summary judgment; holding that the Threat Screening Center (formerly, the Terrorist Screening Center) is a subcomponent of the FBI’s National Security Branch, rather than its own “agency,” and therefore the plaintiff failed to exhaust administrative remedies by filing an appeal challenging the adequacy of the agency’s search for responsive records; notably, the FBI did not raise any specific exhaustion argument in its motion for summary judgement, but only as a defense in its answer.
Aviation Servs. LLC v. Small Bus. Admin.; Russo. v. Small Bus. Admin. (N.D. Cal.) — in a pair of consolidated cases concerning the SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan (“EIDL”) program, granting in part and denying in part the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment; holding, firstly, that the agency’s failure to provide timely determinations did not, in and of itself, provide grounds for any declaratory or injunctive relief, particularly since the plaintiffs failed to plead any “policy or practice” claim; also holding that the agency, in large part, conducted an adequate search, but reserving judgment as to certain aspects of the reasonableness of the search methodology due to deficient supporting declarations; directing the agency to provide more detail about certain search terms and to run some supplemental searches; concluding the agency properly withheld case file notes under Exemption 5, in conjunction with the deliberative-process privilege, and that it properly withheld the bank account numbers of individual EIDL applicants under Exemption 6; yet also ruling the agency could not use Exemption 6 to withhold either the names and addresses of loan program participants, or the bank account numbers of “non-personal entities,” i.e., any “company or business entity”; rejecting the agency’s categorical use of Exemption 6 to withhold third-party EIDL application information, including aggregate statistical data, because the agency had not made the necessary showing that “all responsive information” refers to “individually-owned or closely-held businesses” or would otherwise be personally identifying; concluding the agency correctly used Exemption 4 to withhold a company’s “confidential unit pricing”; finally, rejecting the requesters’ “reading-room” claims for failure to meet the “threshold” requirement of describing what records have not been made available under 552(a)(2)(B)-(C) in the agency’s FOIA library.
Jewish Legal News, Inc. v. Dep’t of Educ. (N.D. Cal.) — granting in part and denying in part the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment; holding the requester lacked standing to challenge “certain redactions and withholdings in the FOIA response that were originally made in response to previous FOIA requests” and only “[re-]produced here in response” to an item of the request at issue; holding also that the agency properly applied Exemption 5 and the deliberative-process privilege, except with respect to emails that reflect communications with persons using “accounts outside the government”; rejecting the agency’s contention that such non-government accounts may have been White House employees as unsupported by adequate specificity in its Vaughn index; concluding the agency properly applied Exemptions 6 and 7(A); rejecting the plaintiff’s policy-and-practice claim predicated on the agency having taken “several months to process and produce documents on a rolling bases,” and explaining that productions are distinct from a “determination,” which is what must be provided within a specified timeframe; denying without prejudice the requester’s motion to the extent it alleged a failure to conduct an adequate search or to reasonably segregate non-exempt material from the records at issue.
Mar. 30, 2025
Farris v. Garland (D.D.C.) -- determining that: (1) the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys conducted a reasonable search for certain records related to plaintiff’s conviction for drug trafficking, and it had no obligation to obtain records maintained by other federal or local agencies; (2) government properly withheld certain information from investigative “DEA 6 Reports” pursuant to Exemptions 7(C), 7(D), and 7(E).
Mar. 28, 2025
Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Forest Serv. (D.D.C.) -- finding that: (1) federal contractor’s appraisal of a land exchange between the government and defendant-intervenor, a private mining company, qualified as an “agency record” because the agency “constructively controlled” the appraisal based on the four-factor test set forth in Burka v. HHS, 87 F.3d 508 (D.C. Cir. 1996); using the same test, finding that the contractor’s documents containing data underlying the appraisal were not agency records; (2) agency justified withholding information that would result in foreseeable economic harm to defendant-intervenor, but offered only inadmissible hearsay as to whether withheld information that would result in foreseeable harms to the appraiser and third-party experts’ business interests; (3) agency properly invoked Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to withhold the appraisal, summary, and technical report as pre-decisional and deliberative, but rejecting the reasonableness of the harms foreseen by the agency; and (4) agency’s segregability analysis was insufficient because the agency inconsistently processed an appraisal summary and a technical report.
Mar. 26, 2025
Energy Pol’y Advocates v. Sec. & Exch. Comm’n (D.D.C.) — granting, in part, the government’s motion for summary judgment; holding the agency properly used Exemption 5, in conjunction with the deliberative-process privilege, to withhold calendar entries of a former SEC Chairman; yet concluding that, because many entries in the agency’s Vaughn index lacked adequate specificity and failed to “identify the subject of policy under consideration and instead refer[red] only to policymaking in general,” the agency had not met its burden to justify the withholding of certain e-mail communications between the White House, former SEC Chairman, and senior agency officials; ordering in camera review of the e-mail records; deferring consideration of the agency’s satisfaction of the foreseeable-harm standard for the e-mails, but holding the agency’s argument vis-à-vis the calendar entries was adequate.
Bader Family Found. v. Equal Emp’t Opportunity Comm’n (D.D.C.) — denying the government’s motion for summary judgment and holding various parts of plaintiff’s request were “reasonably described”; explaining two of the request items in dispute “are not vague and have only one reasonable interpretation,” the agency “has not put forward a sufficiently detailed declaration explaining why . . . [responsive] records are difficult to locate,” and “the agency’s declarations do not sufficiently explain how the post-search efforts . . . would be overly burdensome”; similarly, with respect to the third item in dispute, concluding the agency “can reasonably construe [it] without” further clarification or defined terms, it “cannot definitively say [based on the record] . . . that searching for . . . text messages would be unreasonably burdensome,” and it “has not provided sufficient evidence” about “overly burdensome post-search efforts.”
Judicial Watch v. Dep’t of State (D.D.C.) — granting the agency’s motion to dismiss and holding that plaintiff’s request did not “‘reasonably describe’ the records sought” because it “uses vague words and descriptions,” including the phrase “all records related to”; emphasizing, at the same time, that “[t]here is no bright-line rule barring FOIA requesters from using the phrase “related to,” and a court’s analysis must focus on “whether the request is otherwise so ‘unusually specific’ that it still manages to satisfy FOIA’s reasonable-description requirement”; noting the plaintiff’s request “lacks any custodial limitation and does not specify the type of records sought”; querying “what . . . [the] other ‘related’ records [are] that the agency must look for if the categories of records identified in the latter part of the request are not sufficient.”
Mar. 25, 2025
Heritage Found. v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — in a case where the parties contested the proper meaning of the term “request,” denying the government’s motion for summary judgment and adopting the plaintiff’s proposed interpretation; holding that the FBI improperly split-up the plaintiff’s three-item FOIA request into three separate “requests”; explaining that, despite the agency having issued timely adverse determinations on two of the three parts, the requester was not required to exhaust administrative remedies as to those denials (and the separate denial of a fee waiver) before filing suit on the entirety of its submission after the agency failed to provide a timely response to the third item; suggesting that common usage, relevant caselaw, and statutory context all point to “request” best “refer[ring] to an overall FOIA submission,” rather than individual parts of a multi-item “submission”; noting that, while FOIA provides explicit authority to aggregate or consolidate distinct requests, there is no mention of splitting-up a request; expressing skepticism towards the agency’s contention that ruling for the plaintiff would “allow requesters to strategically circumvent the administrative appeal process.”
Evans v. Cent. Intelligence Agency (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion for summary judgment and holding that (1) the CIA’s search for records was adequate, (2) it properly issued a Glomar response pursuant to Exemption 1 as to a portion of the request, and (3) the plaintiff failed to exhaust administrative remedies with respect to the CIA’s use of Glomar with Exemption 3; explaining the plaintiff offered only “mere speculation” about “uncovered documents,” and the agency was not required to “list each system it searched, as opposed to the categories or types of systems”; rejecting the plaintiff’s arguments on the Glomar front, which focused on the level of detail in the agency’s supporting declaration; noting the requester failed to raise any objection in his appeal about the use of Exemption 3 with Glomar.
Mar. 24, 2025
Cohodes v. Dep’t of Justice (N.D. Cal.) — after awarding $180,808.50 in attorney’s fees, and following supplemental briefing precipitated by plaintiff having “estimated [certain] fees in the initial fees motion and document[ing] them only in the reply,” granting plaintiff an additional $73,948.95 “in fees for [its] fees motion” because “the hourly rates and hours spent are reasonable”; rejecting the government’s request to apply an across-the-board reduction; in total, awarding the requester $254,757.45.
Basey v. Dep’t of Justice (D. Alaska) — holding the agency conducted a reasonable search given the “context of [the requester’s] broad request”; describing the execution of searches in the components “most likely to have responsive records,” as well as the FBI’s separate search as recipient of a referral from EOUSA; noting the requester’s “allegations of bad faith rest on innuendo” and rest on “purely speculative claims about the existence and discoverability of other documents”; holding also that the government properly applied: (1) Exemption 3, in conjunction with the Child Victims’ & Child Witnesses’ Rights Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3509(d), to withhold “‘interviews of a minor victim and explicit media involving’ child sexual abuse,” (2) Exemption 5 and the deliberative-process privilege, together with Exemptions 6 and 7(C), to withhold records pertaining to interviews of victims abused by the requester, and (3) Exemption 7(E) to withhold records concerning the FBI’s Computer Analysis Response Team and Cyber Division’s Innocent Images National Initiative Program.
Mar. 21, 2025
Wiggins v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — granting in part and denying in part the government’s motion for summary judgment; holding that the agency conducted an adequate search where it explained the custodial locations searched and the search terms utilized; noting that plaintiff proffered no “evidence” to support its “assertion of missing records”; holding also that the agency failed to offer adequate explanation for its use of Exemption 5 to withhold “undated and unsigned proposed amended jury instructions,” as well as other “unsigned” and either “undated” or “partially dated” litigation documents, including e-mail records between DOJ personnel “regarding the prosecution of plaintiff and the co-defendant’s criminal cases”; explaining that “EOUSA’s cryptic description” for the various “document[s] or categor[ies] of documents” does not establish their deliberative nature; noting also the agency’s “generic assertions of harm to internal discussions . . . parroted throughout the Vaugh index”; with respect to Exemption 7(C), holding that the agency properly redacted “the names and other identifying information of third-party individuals, including Eastern District employees, third-party witnesses, and co-defendants”; finally, concluding that “EOUSA has not properly justified withholding fifty-one sealed pages,” as it “offered no evidence”; directing the government to “supplement the record” and, if appropriate after re-processing, to “move again for dispositive relief.”
Ctr. for Medical Progress v. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs. (D.D.C.) — granting the agency’s motion for summary judgment and denying the plaintiff’s cross-motion; holding, firstly, that the agency “properly determined the scope of the plaintiff’s FOIA request,” which sought a “specific set of documents” about “grant applications,” especially in light of the plaintiff’s oral and written clarifications upon request from the agency, as well as its agreement to narrow its request post-submission; holding further that the agency conducted an adequate search; noting that “[b]eyond the contract records” that were properly beyond the scope of the request, “the plaintiff provide[d] no further basis to challenge the good faith basis” afforded to the agency’s supporting declarations.
Am. Property Locators, Inc. v. Customs & Border Prot. (D.D.C.) — in a case involving a commercial-use FOIA request for records about stale checks from CPB, granting the agency’s motion to dismiss and approving its inclusion in a fee estimate of expenses related to carrying out the “business submitter process”; explaining that CBP maintains a special process for notifying “submitters” of “commercial information” so that they can object to disclosure of their information under the FOIA, and that the agency has treated “Limited Payability (stale dated check) records” as triggering this “process”; declining to adopt the government’s recommendation to either apply arbitrary-and-capricious review or Auer deference in lieu of the FOIA’s default de novo review standard; holding that CPB provided a “‘reasonable, non-obstructionist explanation’ . . . for applying the business submitter process” based on its published regulations, and that it appropriately assumed responsive records would “encompass emails between CBP and business submitters regarding the original commercial transaction, the status of payee checks, the occurrence of novel financial transactions, and/or bank account information”; rejecting plaintiff’s argument that any possible exceptions to the business-submitter process applied; noting the “process itself is reasonable” as it “‘give[s] effect to Exemption 4,” among other things; finding no basis in the record to doubt the actual fee estimate of $738; finally, concluding that the requester failed to exhaust by “pay[ing] the required fees before suing the challenge the substance of [its] FOIA request.”
Rhodes v. Internal Revenue Serv. (N.D. Ala.) — granting the agency’s motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust administrative remedies; rejecting the requester’s apparent argument, based on the language of his complaint, that “there were no administrative remedies to be exhausted”; rejecting also the requester’s suggestion that the IRS’s determination letter was “insufficient to trigger a duty to exhaust his claims” because it “did not communicate the scope of the documents it withheld” by including a “privilege log.”
Jackson v. Internal Revenue Serv. (N.D. Ala.) — in an almost word-for-word, identical opinion to that published above in Rhodes, granting the agency’s motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust administrative remedies.
Cahill v. Dep’t of Commerce (D.D.C.) — granting the agency’s motion to dismiss for mootness where a pro se requester admitted the agency “finally complied” with his request prior to filing suit; denying also the requester’s motion for costs because the “Department turned over the video [at issue] without a court order, written agreement, or consent decree,” the record was “outside the scope of [the requester’s] FOIA request,” and “the Department would have been able to meritoriously defend its denial of . . . [the] request by arguing that [the requester] had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies.”
Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — in a case seeking access to records related to the “now-closed criminal investigation of former Congressman Matt Gaetz,” in which the requester also pleaded policy-and-practice claims related to the use of Glomar responses and categorical withholdings under Exemptions 6 and 7(C), granting in party and denying in part the government’s motion to dismiss; with respect to allegations about an unlawful Glomar-response policy, holding that CREW can appropriately “aggregate” evidence about the behavior of multiple “components within a larger agency” to sustain its claim; noting, in that respect, how “CREW has identified six instances of potentially violative conduct across four DOJ components,” that this “is numerically sufficient to show a pattern for purposes of a motion to dismiss,” that there is sufficient relation between the examples to suggest a “consistent policy,” and that CREW has otherwise “plead sufficient facts to suggest” the ostensible policy is unlawful; holding also, by contrast, that CREW’s policy-or-practice claim about Exemption 6/7(C) responses must be dismissed because DOJ’s “responses to CREW’s three requests were not uniform,” and therefore undercut any theory that they did not reflect “case-by-case analysis.”
Mar. 20, 2025
Simmons v. Dep’t of State (D.D.C.) — denying an aggrieved, former State Department employee’s motion for attorney fees in light of her failure to demonstrate under the “catalyst theory” how she “substantially prevailed,” and was therefore eligible for fee recovery; specifically, noting the requester failed to show “this litigation caused [the agency] to comply with her FOIA and Privacy Act requests”; noting also the agency had “immediately started processing records and made several pre-litigation productions”; relatedly concluding the requester “fail[ed] to rebuff evidence that [any] delayed ‘disclosure result[ed] not from the suit but from delayed administrative processing.’”
Leopold v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — on remand from the D.C. Circuit for a “third round of summary judgment,” denying the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment regarding withholding under Exemption 8 of a redacted version of an independent monitor’s report detailing HSBC’s compliance with a deferred prosecution agreement, specifically with respect to the justification for continued non-disclosure under the foreseeable-harm standard; ruling that, while “Exemption 8’s broader protections . . . related to financial institutions apply,” in camera review of the monitor report is needed to resolve the case; noting, inter alia, that another judge “found not harm in disclosing a redacted version,” and that DOJ’s own filings suggest “portions of the . . . [r]eport might be . . . released with minimal risk of harm.”
Crandell v. Nat’l Archives & Records Admin. (4th Cir.) (unpublished) — affirming dismissal of FOIA lawsuit, where the requester failed to exhaust administrative remedies and failed also to demonstrate that the records he had requested “still existed”; modifying the district court’s ruling, however, by ordering the dismissal to be without prejudice.
Mar. 19, 2025
Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. U.S. DOGE Serv. (D.D.C.) — denying the government’s motion for reconsideration of a prior preliminary-injunction ruling that held U.S. DOGE Service was likely an “agency” for FOIA purposes, in large part, because the government’s “arguments could all have been raised during the last round of briefing” and “none of them provides a basis for reconsideration”; acknowledging, nonetheless, that “it would be preferable . . . to review the question of whether [DOGE] is subject to the FOIA on the merits based on a more complete record,” and therefore inviting the requester to file a motion for limited discovery under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(d); expressing doubt that the irreparable-harm analysis underlying the Court’s preliminary injunction ruling was erroneous; continuing to point to public statements by President Trump and Elon Musk, as well as press reports, that cast doubt on the government’s various factual claims.
U.S. Right to Know v. Dep’t of Def. (N.D. Cal.) — granting in party and denying in part the plaintiff’s motion for attorney’s fees; noting the government did “not contest that Plaintiff is eligible to receive an award of fees and costs”; on the question of entitlement, concluding that: (1) the public interest favors the award, as the records, which pertain to COVID-19, could help reveal “‘possible politicization of agency decisionmaking’”; (2) the plaintiff, as a non-profit organization, had no commercial interest in the responsive records; and (3) the agency acted unreasonably by failing to comply with statutory deadlines, or to communicate with the plaintiff “for over two years until after suit was commenced,” and by significantly over-redacting the responsive records in the first instance without any “colorable basis under the law”; ultimately awarding “$74,312.88 in attorneys fees and $688.96 in costs,” or roughly $10,000 less than what plaintiff asked for, after rejecting recovery for: (1) certain administrative tasks, like fixing access problems to USAfx or other “purely clerical tasks,” (2) internal attorney communications that were vaguely described in the ’ fee motion and supporting declarations, (3) pro hac vice fees, and (4) costs related to “expert declarations.”
Mar. 18, 2025
Berlant v. U.S. Election Comm’n (D. Oregon) -- denying pro se plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration because it was filed one day too late under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e), and her simultaneously filed appeal with the Ninth Circuit deprived the court of jurisdiction to entertain plaintiff’s motion under Rule 60; alternatively, plaintiff’s motion failed because she identified no new evidence, clear error, or intervening change in the law.
Emesowum v. NSA (D. Md.) -- in case concerning existence of video showing vehicles arriving at agency’s front gate, denying agency’s motion to dismiss because NSA had not (yet) provided adequate documentation to support its contention that the video was “routinely deleted before the NSA could practicably retrieve it.”; further, dismissing plaintiff’s claim for punitive damages and dismissing an individual NSA employee as a party.
Mar. 14, 2025
Finders Keepers USA, LLC v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — on renewed cross-motions for summary judgment, granting in part and denying in part each party’s motion; on the question of search adequacy, (1) finding that the FBI’s chosen search terms were “reasonably calculated to uncover all relevant documents,” (2) rejecting the agency’s cut-off date (i.e., the date of its initial search) as unreasonable because it “should have looked for records through the date of its second search,” and (3) again identifying deficiencies in the FBI’s averments that it searched all files likely to contain responsive material, given the facts of the case and prior proceedings; similarly ruling that the search for certain DVD videos was reasonable; deciding that “a genuine dispute of fact” exists as to whether the FBI was required to produce all versions of a particular operational plan; and, finally, rejecting once again the FBI’s invocation of Exemption 7(E) for failure to identify the risks of circumvention of the law, and for failure to satisfy the foreseeable-harm standard; ordering in camera review and further proceedings.
Francis v. Internal Revenue Serv. (D.D.C.) — granting the agency’s combined motions to dismiss and for summary judgment; dismissing as moot several counts in the complaint because the IRS located responsive records and released them in full, and there was no further challenge to the adequacy of the relevant searches; concluding that, with respect to another count, the requester failed to exhaust administrative remedies by admittedly failing to file an appeal before initiating the lawsuit; rejecting another two counts as pertaining to improper or invalid FOIA requests that “sought information and not records”; and, finally, ruling the IRS conducted an adequate search for all remaining counts, and rejecting the requester’s arguments that the agency “acted in bad faith through its false and misleading representations.”
Tsai v. United States (D.D.C.) — in relevant part, granting the IRS’s motion for summary judgment and holding that the agency conducted an adequate search; noting an apparent “gap between what [the requester] had actually requested and what he . . . intended to request,” but accepting the agency’s arguments that post-submission modification or enlargement of the scope of the request was improper given its “four-corners”; declining to strike the agency’s supporting declaration for lack of personal knowledge because, “[i]n the FOIA context, ‘declarants are not required to have personal knowledge of the search itself, but rather ‘personal knowledge of the procedures used in handling [a FOIA] request and familiarity with the documents in question.’”
White v. Dep’t of Agric. (E.D. Okla.) — denying the agency’s motion for summary judgment and rejecting the adequacy of its search for records about the Rural Development Division’s rental assistance program; explaining that, while the agency’s supporting declaration “indicates that all the records in USDA possession have been produced, it contains no averments pertaining to the agency’s search” methodology, including descriptions of search terms and the types of searches actually performed.
Mar. 11, 2025
Ctr. to Advance Sec. in Am. v. USAID (D.D.C.) — granting the agency’s unopposed motion for a stay due to the “extremely limited” number of “USAID personnel available to work on Freedom of Information Act” matters—specifically, “three direct hire FOIA staff” and “nine institutional support contractors”; noting that USAID “cite[d] no authority in support of its request” for a stay, but understanding the request to arise under Open America; noting further that “the Court is skeptical that an agency can avoid its obligations under FOIA . . . by simply implementing a reduction-in-force . . . [or] more generally, by reducing the agency’s overall FOIA staff ‘by half,’” especially when there are no “external impediments to meeting the statutory requirements, such as a lack of funding from Congress or an unanticipated volume of requests that has overwhelmed the FOIA office”; warning that the stay is entered in large part because it is unopposed and “that this decision should not be understood to forecast how the Court is likely to resolve an opposed request for a stay under similar circumstances or a request by Plaintiff to lift the stay.”
Malik v. DHS (D.D.C.) — granting in part and denying in part the government’s motion for summary judgment, and denying the requester’s cross-motion; concluding, in large part, that the defendant-agencies conducted adequate searches for records concerning requester, notwithstanding the requester’s insistence they overlooked “materials which are known to exist”; upholding the agencies’ exemption claims based on the deliberative process, attorney-client, and attorney work-product privileges, as well as Exemptions 6, 7(C), and 7(E); yet also rejecting USCIS’s application of Exemption 7 to a “Memo for the Record” concerning the requester’s employment application because, as a “mixed-function agency,” the agency had failed to meet its burden to show how the record was “compiled for a law-enforcement purpose”; ordering USCIS to produce a supplemental affidavit addressing its law-enforcement functions vis-a-vis the contested memo or to proffer more detailed explanation for the applicability of Exemption 5.
Mar. 10, 2025
Brennan Ctr. for Justice v. U.S. Dep’t of State (S.D.N.Y.) -- deciding that: (1) department performed a reasonable search for certain documents referenced in President Trump’s 2017 travel ban; and (2) following in camera review of four documents, all but three pages of one document were fully protected by the presidential communications privilege and Exemption 1.
Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. U.S. DOGE Serv. (D.D.C.) -- in most notable part, granting plaintiff’s request for expedited processing of various records from the U.S. DOGE Service (USDS) because the “preliminary record” indicated that USDS “likely” wields substantial independent authority from the White House and therefore is any agency subject to FOIA.
Kendrick v. DEA (D.D.C.) -- on renewed summary judgment, determining that DEA performed adequate supplemental searches for records concerning pro se plaintiff’s criminal case.
Mar. 6, 2025
Whitlock v. Dep’t of Def. (D.D.C.) — in case concerning federal corruption and bribery investigation involving the U.S. 7th Fleet, holding that: (1) government was entitled to summary judgment on issues uncontested by plaintiff, specifically that Navy conducted adequate searches and properly withheld records pursuant to Exemptions 5, 6, and 7(C); (2) government was required to release all records withheld pursuant to Exemption 7(A) because the criminal cases it identified as relevant were closed, and it failed to explain how disclosure of each category of withheld records would interfere with any Naval enforcement proceedings; and (3) government was required to release all records withheld pursuant to Exemption 7(B) because it failed to show that disclosure of each category of withheld records “would, more probably than not, seriously interfere with the fairness” of Naval enforcement proceedings.”
Gov’t Accountability Project v. Dep’t of the Treasury (D.D.C.) — finding that agency failed to show that Exemption 4 protected a company’s application and license to sell oil in Syria, because company’s unsworn statements made during the submitter notice process constituted inadmissible hearsay and, in any event, were too “vague and conclusory” to establish that the company customarily and actually treated the documents as private; further finding that some evidence supported Treasury’s position, including confidential markings on the disputed documents, and therefore denying both parties’ summary judgment motions.
Gatore v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec. (D.D.C.) — in dispute concerning a request for attorney’s fees, ruling that: (1) only one of dozens of plaintiffs established an attorney-client relationship with moving counsel; (2) plaintiff was eligible for attorney’s fees as a prevailing party because agency had been ordered to release certain documents, rejecting agency’s argument that plaintiff needed to prove she received documents from her counsel; and (3) whether plaintiff was entitled to fees under four-factor test was unnecessary to decide owing to her counsel’s “total lack of billing judgment in this case . . . despite repeated warnings from this Court and other members in this District regarding the serious deficiencies of his billing practices.”
Mar. 3, 2025
Jensen v. SEC (D.D.C.) -- finding that SEC performed reasonable search for contract agreements and agency forms filed for two CUSIP numbers, which pro se plaintiff apparently hoped would “expose an alleged conspiracy, orchestrated by his sentencing court, to generate profit from the bonds associated with his criminal proceedings.”
Feb. 28, 2025
United States v. Alexander (5th Cir.) (unpublished) -- vacating lower court’s decision denying plaintiff-appellee’s request for grand jury records pertaining to his criminal case, because FOIA does not apply to federal courts and therefore the district court lacked jurisdiction to entertain plaintiff’s FOIA claim.
Puzey v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- in case concerning pro se inmate’s criminal case records, determining that: (1) DEA, FBI, EOUSA, and ATF performed adequate searches, an issue plaintiff did not dispute; (2) plaintiff did not meaningfully dispute EOUSA’s withholdings under Exemptions 3 and 5; (3) FBI and EOUSA properly withheld the names of agency employees, third parties, and state and law enforcement pursuant to Exemptions 6 and 7(C); (4) government properly withheld records pursuant to Exemptions 7(D), 7(E), and 7(F), rejecting plaintiff’s public interest arguments as irrelevant; and (5) plaintiff conceded government’s foreseeable harm and segregability requirements.
Biggins v. USPS (D.N.J.) (unpublished) -- dismissing claim because plaintiff failed to send his request to a designated request center, he failed to label his request per agency regulations, and he improperly asked for information instead of records.
Feb. 27, 2025
Louise Trauma Ctr. v. ICE (D.D.C.) -- concluding that ICE did not sufficiently explain its search methodology for requested training material; that in camera review of agency’s Exemption 5 redactions was warranted; and that plaintiff’s request concerning agency’s information processing system was not reasonably described.
Feb. 26, 2025
Leopold v. Dep’t of State (D.D.C.) — deciding that: (1) agency improperly relied on the deliberative process privilege’s consultant corollary doctrine to withhold its communications with pending nominees to Senate-confirmed positions, because a nominee has a self-interested, independent stake in the confirmation process; (2) agency properly withheld talking points and many other—but not all— records under the deliberative process privilege; and (3) agency met the foreseeable harm and segregability requirements.
Feb. 25, 2025
Transgender Law Ctr. v. ICE (D.D.C.) — in case concerning agency’s treatment of transgender detainees, concluding that: (1) ICE’s search was deficient because the agency neglected to clearly show that it searched the email accounts of two relevant employees, it unreasonably omitted one search term, and it unreasonably used another search term only in combination with other words; and (2) ICE failed to properly support its withholdings under Exemption 5’s attorney-client and deliberative process privileges, including whether foreseeable harm would result from disclosure; (3) ICE did not show how the records withheld under Exemptions 7(C) and 7(E) met the law enforcement threshold; (4) ICE improperly relied on Exemption 6 to withhold agency email domain addresses, to categorically withhold the names of “lower-level” agency employees and third parties, and to withhold name of a training video narrator.
Feb. 24, 2025
Turse v. DOD (D.D.C.) — in a case concerning records about a US drone strike in Somalia, granting the agency’s motion for summary judgment and concluding that its withholding of a PowerPoint slide and Army Regulation 15-6 Report of Investigation under Exemption 1 was appropriate; noting the agency’s declaration adequately described why the records at issue were classified and how disclosure would harm national security; rejecting the requester’s contention that the records were classified “for a prohibited purpose” for lack of evidence; similarly rejecting the requester’s arguments that the agency failed to satisfy the FOIA’s foreseeable-harm standard.
Dawkins v. FBI (E.D.N.Y.) — deciding that FBI performed an adequate search for any surveillance records about pro se plaintiff and his residence; plaintiff was not entitled to in camera review of documents because FBI’s declaration sufficiently detailed its search methodology and explained why it withheld certain records; plaintiff’s request for a court order ending FBI’s alleged surveillance could not be considered because plaintiff failed to raise those allegations in his complaint.
Feb. 21, 2025
Hvistendahi v. DOJ (S.D.N.Y.) -- in case concerning an Office of Inspector General’s report about personal misconduct of FBI employees overseas, concluding that: (1) FBI established that dates and locations of the misconduct, as well as the direct quotations from OIG interviews, implicated personal privacy interests under Exemption 7(C), but those interests were outweighed by a “significant public interest” in disclosure; and (2) FBI properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to withhold the “unsubstantiated allegations against FBI officials and the reasons why OIG found them unsubstantiated.”
Feb. 20, 2025
Am. Oversight v. DOJ (D.D.C.) — denying plaintiff’s request expedited processing in a case concerning access to volume two of former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on the possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago; holding that the motion for preliminary injunctive relief did not establish how the relief sought (specifically, disclosure of the report before any Senate confirmation vote on Kash Patel) would alleviate any ostensibly irreparable harm, in large part because another court has already enjoined DOJ from releasing the report “no matter what exemption decisions it makes”; questioning also whether the requester’s motion even seeks the type of injunctive relief permitted in the FOIA context.
The Brady Ctr. to Prevent Gun Violence v. FBI (D.D.C.) — determining that the FBI failed to show that disclosure of an agency’s standard operating procedures for the National Instant Criminal Background Check System would enable individuals to circumvent the law for purposes of Exemption 7(E); reserving judgment on the FBI’s segregability analysis until after the agency renewed its summary judgment motion or altered its withholdings; granting summary judgment to the FBI on non-contested information withheld under Exemption 5 and Exemption 7(E).
Magassa v. TSA (D.D.C.) — ruling that: (1) TSA properly relied on Exemption 3 in conjunction with 49 U.S.C. § 114(r) to withhold records concerning the plaintiff, a former employee of Delta Airlines whose security credentials were revoked; (2) TSA properly invoked Exemption 3 in refusing to confirm or deny the existence of records indicating whether plaintiff is on a federal watch list; and (3) TSA substantiated its Exemption 5’s attorney-client and attorney work-product privilege redactions for records generated during the course of administrative proceedings concerning the plaintiff’s revoked security credentials.
Feb. 14, 2025
Am. Immigration Council v. EOIR (D.D.C.) — granting in part and denying in part the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment, and ordering the agency to undertake a supplemental search; concluding that EOIR “properly understood the scope of Plaintiffs’ FOIA request” to seek “official” documents about immigration court practices, but the agency nevertheless inappropriately limited its search to “solely centrally disseminated records” and improperly excluded records created locally by individual immigration courts and judges; concluding further that certain aspects of EOIR’s search were inadequate.
Feb. 13, 2025
Heritage Found. v. CIA (D.D.C.) — granting the CIA’s motion for judgment on the pleadings with respect to the plaintiff’s expedition request because that request lacked the required certification that the grounds for seeking expedition were “true and correct,” which thus rendered it deficient; rejecting the plaintiff’s arguments that its non-compliance should be excused because “this is not a case where . . . [it] ‘matters’” and it subsequently added the necessary “magic words” in a second request for expedition; noting that the ruling does not impact the requester’s remaining claims and does not foreclose a motion for leave to amend or supplement the Complaint.
S. Envtl. Law Ctr. v. Tenn. Valley Auth. (E.D. Tenn.) — denying the government’s partial motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, where the requester attempted to challenge the agency’s search adequacy after filing suit for lack of a timely response; holding that the FOIA’s right to judicial review does not distinguish between “an agency’s compliance with the timeframe clause . . . [and] the disclosure, reasonable search, and/or exemption subparagraph(s)”; noting that “Defendant’s labyrinthine conception of the FOIA seems contradictory to the very purposes for which Congress enacted” the law, and if “the Court [were] to take this argument to its logical conclusion, agencies could short-circuit judicial review through precisely the procedural dynamics of this case: force a requester to seek judicial review by failing to timely respond, disclose some requested material only after a suit is filed, and immediately move to dismiss any potential challenge to the adequacy of the disclosure, itself, on grounds of subject matter jurisdiction.”
Feb. 11, 2025
McWatters v. ATF (D.C. Cir.) (unpublished) -- affirming district court’s decision that ATF properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to withhold disputed portions of an audiotape of a deadly 2003 nightclub fire, because “disclosure . . . would invade the privacy interests of family members of those who perished” and plaintiff failed to identify a countervailing public interest.
Feb. 10, 2025
Leopold v. FBI (D.D.C.) -- in a case concerning access to the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago investigative file, rejecting the agency’s reliance on Exemption 7(A) and its Glomar response, in large part because there is no longer any pending law enforcement proceeding (i.e., charges against President Trump have been dismissed), and future proceedings are not reasonably anticipated as President Trump is likely immune from prosecution; noting further that the agency failed to support its position with any suggestion of alleged criminal conduct by President Trump after the 2020 presidential election.
Feb. 6, 2025
Gannett Satellite Info. Network, LLC v. DOJ (D.D.C.) — on renewed motion for summary judgment in a case concerning access to “individual-level data about people who died while in custody of local jails and state and federal prisons between 2010 and 2019,” ruling in favor of the plaintiff on the issues of search adequacy and the application of exemptions; but granting in part the agency’s motion for partial reconsideration, thus excusing disclosure of certain records whose production was previously stayed and which would be covered by Exemption 3 and the “express confidentiality provision” of the Crime Control Act; notably, explaining the agency improperly limited its search by relying on a technical understanding of whether certain BOP data were “relevant” to the request, despite “being on notice about” what the plaintiff actually wanted and having failed to correct information online (and in the case record) that helped perpetuate plaintiff’s (and the court’s) misunderstanding; emphasizing “[t]he circumstances here”—either “sloppiness and inaccuracy” or, “at worst, intentional obfuscation”—“certainly do not flatter defendant”; further holding that Exemption 7(C) did not apply because the Bureau of Justice Statistics “does not specialize in law enforcement” and the agency otherwise failed to offer any evidence linking the requested data to a law-enforcement investigation; rejecting also the use of Exemption 6 because either there is no substantial privacy interest implicated or the public interest in disclosure is overriding.
Tran v. DOJ (D.D.C.) — in a case brought by a former FBI agent seeking records about his own “criminal investigation and prosecution,” granting in part and denying in part the government’s motion for summary judgment; holding that, while the FBI’s Glomar response was justified for certain records, the agency failed to meet its burden with respect to others about an “undercover informant” who had revealed himself to the public and whom the FBI had “officially acknowledged" as serving in such capacity in another lawsuit; directing the government to provide further explanation for an apparent discrepancy between its initial estimate of responsive pages and the number of pages actually produced; finally, rejecting the plaintiff’s arguments about agency “bad faith” as “baseless and without merit.”
Stevens v. DHS (N.D. Ill.) — rejecting, in large part, a requester’s search-adequacy challenge because she “failed to rebut the presumption of good faith” afforded to agency declarations and because the agency’s search methodology (such as limiting efforts to certain offices or databases) was otherwise reasonable; nevertheless concluding that one no-responsive-records search conducted by an ICE field office involved unreasonably limited keywords because two other field offices were able to locate records with “more expansive search terms”; requiring limited supplemental searches for one request where ICE failed to explain its search terms and omitted search terms for subparts of the request; holding the government properly withheld records under Exemption 4 because “private contractors submitted the commercial information . . . with an assurance of privacy,” and Exemption 5 and the deliberative-process privilege; ordering ICE to “re-process and re-evaluation its withholdings” of records not included in the parties’ agreed-upon initial “representative sampling”; finally, ordering ICE to reproduce an “unreadable . . . PDF of a spreadsheet” in native Excel format.
Burrus v. USDA (9th Cir.) (unpublished) -- affirming district court’s decision dismissing pro se plaintiff’s FOIA claim, because plaintiff’s “general request for documentation supporting the agency's employment actions included in a letter that described its purpose as protesting those actions did not constitute a FOIA request”; noting that plaintiff’s letter was not addressed to a FOIA office and failed to include the phrase ‘FOIA request” as required by agency regulations.
Feb. 5, 2025
Ctr. for Immigration Studies v. USCIS (D.D.C.) — after in camera review, holding that USCIS properly withheld an internal policy memo concerning a “temporal tweak” to the Temporary Protected Status designation of Haiti under Exemption 5 and the deliberative-process privilege; describing the memo as a “recommendary proposal”; rejecting the requester’s “adoption” argument because the factual record did not suggest “an express choice to use a deliberative document as a source of agency guidance”; similarly rejecting the requester’s “working law” argument given the nature of the advisory memorandum at issue; concluding the agency satisfied the foreseeable-harm standard because “release would chill candid speech about sensitive issues of foreign policy.”
Energy & Policy Inst. v. Tenn. Valley Auth. (E.D. Tenn.) — ruling that plaintiff was ineligible for attorney’s fees and litigation costs totaling $150k, notwithstanding the agency’s release of previously withheld records after the litigation started; accepting TVA’s argument that a business submitter, not the agency, changed its position on the confidential nature of certain records that had been withheld under Exemption 4; rejecting plaintiff’s argument that the “buck stops with TVA” with respect to withholdings, noting that the “statute expressly envisions cooperation of non-agency parties.”
Jan. 31, 2025
Day v. DOD (D.D.C.) -- concluding that EOUSA, USMS and INTERPOL Washington properly relied on Exemptions 6, 7(C) and 7(E) to withhold records concerning plaintiff that were referred by DOD’s Office of Inspector General; further finding that all agencies released reasonably segregable information to plaintiff.
Jan. 30, 2025
Power the Future v. Dep’t of State (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s combined summary judgment motion and motion to dismiss; holding that (1) the plaintiff’s expedited processing claim was moot and the court lacked jurisdiction because all requested records had been released, (2) the plaintiff’s claim for costs and fees was premature and needed to be resolved though a post-judgment motion, and (3) the agency properly applied Exemption 6 and the FOIA’s foreseeable-harm requirement to withhold the names of two low-level employees; deciding not to decide the parties’ dispute over whether the requester exhausted all administrative remedies before filing suit.
Jan. 24, 2025
Am. First Legal Found. v. USDA (D.C. Cir.) -- affirming district court’s decision that Exemption 5’s presidential communications privilege protected agency strategic plans to promote voter registration and voter participation that were submitted to the White House pursuant to an Executive Order; rejecting appellant’s argument that several agency declarations, the Executive Order, and a White House fact sheet undermined the White House’s sworn statements about the nature and use of the strategic plans.
Human Rights Def. Ctr v. U.S. Park Police (D.C. Cir.) -- (1) reversing district court’s decision that the names of police officers involved in three tort settlements were protected by Exemption 6 (and ordering their disclosure), because the agency’s showing was “wholly conclusory, lacking even minimal substantiation of the officers’ privacy interest or the potential harm from disclosing their names”; moreover, finding that the Park Police failed to meet the foreseeable harm test; and (2) vacating the district court’s order preventing plaintiff-appellant from disclosing, disseminating, or making use of the names of two settlement claimants inadvertently released; concluding that “neither FOIA nor any inherent judicial authority” enabled an agency to seek a court order to limit the effects of its error, and opining that a contrary Tenth Circuit decision neglected to properly consider “important limitations on courts’ inherent authority”; expressing no opinion as to whether a court may claw back inadvertently released documents that are “subject to any independent legal prohibition on disclosure such as applies to classified documents”, also declining to consider whether the First Amendment prevented the district court from issuing its clawback order.
Jan. 22, 2025
Sejas v. U.S. Attorney’s Office (S.D.N.Y.) -- granting government’s motion for summary judgment because pro se plaintiff, who sought records pertaining to three Bolivian individuals, neglected to administratively appeal agency’s denial pursuant to Exemptions 6 and 7(C).
Jan. 17, 2025
Helmer v. U.S. Dep’t of State (D.D.C.) -- determining that: (1) State Department performed adequate searches for various records concerning Sir Zelman Cowen, the nineteenth Governor-General of Australia; (2) plaintiff’s claim that State failed to timely respond to his request was moot; and (3) plaintiff lacked standing to bring a policy-or-practice claim because he never showed that he was realistically threatened by a repetition of State’s alleged policy of practice of unjustified delay.
Jan. 16, 2025
Stevens v. HHS (N.D. Ill.) -- ruling that:(1) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to show that it performed adequate search for various records concerning three individuals, reasoning that: (a) ICE neglected to explain the full scope of ICE program offices and why it limited its search to certain offices, (b) ICE did not sufficiently explain which of the potentially responsive records it found in each of the program offices for each of the individual requests were ultimately produced to plaintiff, and (c) ICE’s search terms were underinclusive for two of the requested individuals; and (2) agency failed to justify its withholdings, noting that its Vaughn Index was “at the very least incomplete” and its declaration contained “clearly erroneous statements showing a lack of attention to detail and accuracy”; further, remarking that ICE’s privacy-related redactions on a “publicly filed document readily available on a public docket” were “egregious,” “ludicrous” “preposterous,” and a “blatant misuse of exemptions” that “defies comprehension” and “screams of bad faith”; and (3) ICE must release all records to plaintiff in full, because: (a) in camera review would be too burdensome, (b) ICE already was already afforded an opportunity to file a supplemental Vaughn Index and “enough was enough” after years of delay.
Jan. 10, 2025
Cincinnati Enquirer v. DOJ (S.D. Ohio) -- ruling that FBI properly relied on Exemption 7(C) in refusing to confirm or deny the existence of text messages between seven private individuals and a former Cincinnati councilwoman who pled guilty to honest services wire fraud; rejecting plaintiff’s argument that Ohio’s state privacy law limited privacy interests recognized under FOIA; also rejecting plaintiff’s public interest arguments because, among other things, they wrongfully presupposed the existence of records.
Pub. Health & Med. Professionals for Transparency v. FDA (N.D. Tex.) -- denying government’s motion to indefinitely suspend court’s order requiring production of certain COVID vaccine-related records (purportedly one-million pages) by June 30, 2025; rejecting FDA’s argument that the court committed “clear error” in setting schedule, because: (a) the original production schedule was entered three years ago, (b) FDA knew about the existence of the records at issue well before disclosing their existence to plaintiff or the court; and (c) the records were “undoubtedly responsive” to plaintiff’s 2021 request and should have been processed along with other records that were last produced in November 2023; further, rejecting FDA’s argument that a lower production rate—such as the 500-page monthly rate used in multiple cases in the DDC— was justified by “exceptional circumstances,” noting that FDA’s understaffing excuse was based on an astonishing claim that newly trained FOIA personnel needed two years to be fully trained; lastly, rejecting FDA’s assertion that the production schedule would be unduly burdensome, reasoning that plaintiff’s request is “arguably the most important FOIA request in American history” and that FDA has previously “risen to the challenge” to meet the court’s production orders.
Jan. 8, 2025
Wade v. Dep’t of Def. (D.D.C.) — dismissing pro se lawsuit, ostensibly brought under FOIA, for failing to “indicat[e] in the complaint or otherwise that [the plaintiff] had submitted FOIA requests to the relevant agency seeking the documents at issue.”
Gelb v. Dep’t of Def. (D.D.C.) — among other things, granting the government’s motion for summary judgment and ruling that (1) the requester could not bring FOIA claims against the Secretary of Defense and DOD’s Chief FOIA Officer in their individual capacities, and, more notably, (2) that the Defense Finance and Accounting Service was not obliged to “create a computer program that obtains and synthesizes information from multiple databases to create a record that does not otherwise exist,” namely, a “report of all stale-dated checks and EFT payments worth $100,000 or more, issued between 2017 and 2020, that remain uncashed,” as that would entail record creation, “which the FOIA does not require.”
Jan. 3, 2025
Graybill v. NSA (C.D. Cal.) -- dismissing pro se lawsuit after finding that the NSA and CIA properly invoked Exemptions 1 and 3 to support their refusals to confirm or deny the existence of records concerning plaintiff.