Buzzfeed Inc. v. FBI (D.D.C.) -- ruling that FBI properly relied on Exemption 5’s presidential communications privilege to withhold its supplementary background investigation file of Brett Kavanaugh, and that the privilege was not waived when file was shared with Senate Judiciary Committee.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Aguirre v. U.S. Nuclear Reg. Comm’n (S.D. Cal.) dismissing plaintiff’s amended complaint because plaintiff failed to show that he had appealed agency’s initial adverse response.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
The Department of Justice was forced to file a corrected brief in the D.C. Circuit after learning that the conclusion section of its brief mistakenly asked the court to affirm, rather than to reverse, the district court’s decision in Cable News Network v. FBI. Slip of the tongue or use of template language gone awry?
NY Times v. FCC (S.D.N.Y) -- finding that agency improperly relied on Exemption 6 to withhold certain server log data associated with electronic submission of public comments regarding agency’s proposal to repeal “net neutrality” rules; further finding that agency failed to demonstrate that producing requested information was unreasonably burdensome.
Rodriguez v. EOUSA (D.D.C.) -- concluding that agency performed adequate search for records of grand jury that indicted plaintiff, but that agency’s Vaughn Index did not provide sufficient information for court to determine propriety of agency’s use of Exemption 3 to withhold all records.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Scott v. IRS (S.D. Fla.) denying plaintiff’s request for discovery because plaintiff failed to follow applicable discovery rules, failed to show any bad faith by the agency, and the request was overbroad, vague in part, and fell outside scope of limited discovery sometimes permitted in FOIA cases.
Zavalunov v. BOP (M.D. Pa.) -- ruling that Federal Bureau of Prisons performed adequate search for requested ICE detainer and properly redacted third party information pursuant to Exemptions 6 and 7(C).
Strahan v. NOAA (D. N.H.) -- concluding that plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies for six of seven of his requests, and that agency was not required to create excel spreadsheet containing information that was publicly available on website.
Colgan v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- remanding matter to FBI after finding that: (1) agency failed to perform reasonable search in response to plaintiff’s 30-part request; and (2) agency’s Vaughn Index lacked sufficient detail to permit review of claimed exemptions and sampled documents had 64 percent error rate.
DBW Partners v. USPS (D.D.C.) -- determining that USPS properly relied on Exemption 3 in conjunction with the Postal Reorganization Act to withhold large portions of Inspector General report concerning USPS’s resellers program and negotiated service agreements, but ordering release of certain portions after performing in camera review.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv. (9th Cir.) (unpublished)-- reversing and remanding district court’s decision that Exemption 4 did not protect intervenor’s information regarding importation and exportation of wildlife, because U.S. Supreme Court decided Food Market Institute v. Argus Leader Media while case was pending on appeal.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Rocky Mountain Wild. v. U.S. Bureau of Land Mgmt. (D. Colo.) -- concluding that: (1) agency performed reasonable search for records concerning specific lease sale, except with respect to its use of search cut-off date; (2) agency’s Vaughn index did not permit court to determine whether agency properly withheld records pursuant to attorney-client privilege or released all non-exempt segregable material.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Hall & Assoc. v. EPA (D.C. Cir.) -- reversing and remanding district court’s decision that EPA properly relied on Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to withhold records concerning a “nonacquiescence decision,” because the court erroneously resolved inferences about the predecisional nature of records against plaintiff instead of requiring EPA to conclusively demonstrate that the threshold was met.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Am. Oversight v. GSA (D.D.C.) -- concluding that General Services Administration, Office of Management and Budget, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Office of Information Policy failed to conduct reasonable searches for records concerning White House meetings relating to consolidation of FBI Headquarters
Reyes v. Dep’t of the Interior (S.D. Cal.) -- summarily finding that agency performed adequate search for records, but ordering in camera review of records withheld by agency pursuant to Exemption 6.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Hardway v. CIA (D.D.C.) -- determining that agency performed reasonable search for records concerning plaintiff and his former colleagues who worked on congressional committee that investigated assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Of note, holding that it was reasonable for the CIA to use the date it commenced the multistep “search process” as the search cut-off date instead of the date the agency executed searches in agency databases.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.