Court opinions issued July 13, 2020

Talley v. DOL (W.D. Mo.) -- concluding that: (1) plaintiff’s claims were barred by res judicata because D.C. Circuit previously held that disputed records were properly withheld and plaintiff was serving as proxy for, and was in privity with, plaintiff in D.C. Circuit case; and (2) even if res judicata did not bar plaintiff’s claims, agency properly withheld records as privileged under Exemption 4.

Campo v. DOJ (W.D. Mo.) -- ruling that: (1) DOJ properly declined to search for third-party records in absence of subject’s written consent or proof of his death because records were protected by Exemptions 6 and 7(C), and plaintiff failed to demonstrate that public interest in disclosure outweighed subject’s privacy interests; (2) even if Exemptions 6 and 7(C) did not apply, requested records were protected as privileged under Exemption 4.

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

Court opinions issued July 9, 2020

Hohner v. DOJ (9th Cir.) (unpublished) -- affirming district court’s decision that Immigration & Customs Enforcement properly withheld records that were subject to a 1998 sealing order issued by federal court.that later clarified that sealing order was intended to prohibit disclosure.

The New York Times v. CIA (2nd Cir.) -- affirming district court’s decision that that CIA properly relied on Exemptions 1 and 3 in refusing to confirm or deny existence of records of covert program of arming and training rebel forces in Syria, and that statements by President Trump and a U.S. Special Operations Commander did not undermine agency’s Glomar response.

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

Court opinions issued July 7, 2020

Buffalo Field Campaign v. U.S Dep’t of the Interior (D. Mont.) -- concluding that National Park Service improperly relied on Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to redact records pertaining to bison population in Yellowstone Park, except with respect to one draft document that met foreseeable harm requirement.

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

Court opinions issued July 6, 2020

Snarr v. BOP (D.D.C.) -- ruling that: (1) plaintiff, a death row inmate, did not have standing to bring lawsuit for third party records because his legal defense team submitted the requests and failed to identify their client in the request or in any other correspondence with the agency; (2) plaintiff could not amend his complaint to substitute a new party in order to create jurisdiction.

Am. Immigration Council v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- explaining four factors that led court to grant plaintiff’s request for preliminary injunctive release, resulting in timetable for government to process records pertaining to its response to COVID-19 pandemic.

Malone v. U.S. Dep’t of the Treasury (W.D. Ky.) -- dismissing plaintiff’s claims against the IRS because he failed to administratively appeal from any of 15 requests he submitted to IRS.

Ctr. for Investigative Reporting v. DOL (N.D. Cal.) -- concluding that Occupational Safety and Health Administration improperly relied on Exemption 4 to withhold illness and injury data about Amazon, noting that the company actually and customarily treated information as non-confidential and that government did not assure confidentiality at time information was submitted.

Am. Civil Liberties Union of Me. Found v. DHS (D. Me.) -- concluding that U.S. Customs and Border Protection properly invoked Exemption 7(E) to redact most—but not all—records regarding the location, method of operation, and purpose of immigration checkpoints. 

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

Court opinions issued July 2, 2020

Am. Ctr. for Law & Justice v. FBI (D.D.C.) -- concluding that plaintiff failed to show that the FBI had a policy or practice of not complying with plaintiff’s requests until plaintiff filed suit, because the three requests cited by plaintiff were “of strikingly different subject matter and scope” and FBI’s actions across the three requests were not uniform.

Powell v. IRS (D.D.C.) -- ruling that: (1) collateral estoppel or issue preclusion barred plaintiff from litigating certain records and that plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies with respect to several requests; and (2) IRS performed reasonable search for all but one remaining disputed record.

Shapiro v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- in 107-page opinion addressing 83 requests submitted to FBI and ATF between 2005 and 2012, determining that: (1) plaintiff failed to demonstrate need for discovery; (2) FBI and ATF performed adequate search for records pertaining to animal rights activism; (3) based on sampling of disputed records, FBI properly withheld records pursuant to Exemptions 1, 3, 5, 7(A), 7(C), 7(D), and 7(E), but improperly relied on Exemption 4 in withholding two pages from a copyrighted book; (4) FBI’s processing error rate of 16 percent was not high enough to justify warrant complete reprocessing of withheld records; (5) ATF failed to demonstrate that it properly relied on Exemption 3 to withhold records submitted to a grand jury or that it properly withheld records pertaining to Macy’s department store pursuant to Exemption 4, but properly withheld records pursuant to Exemptions 5, 7(D), and 7(E).

Swick v. U.S. Dep’t of the Army (D.D.C.) -- deciding that Army did not perform adequate search for plaintiff’s psychological evaluation records or for electronic records associated with plaintiff’s employment file.

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

Court opinion issued June 29, 2020

Amin v. Trump (D.D.C.) -- dismissing plaintiff's claims against multiple components of the Department of Justice because plaintiff, a pro se prisoner seeking his criminal records, failed to show that DOJ received any of his requests.

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

Court opinion issued June 26, 2020

Von Chase v. BIA (D.D.C.) -- finding that: (1) Bureau of Indian Affairs conducted adequate search for records concerning plaintiff and properly redacted third-party information pursuant to Exemptions 6 and 7(C), issues that plaintiff conceded; (2) agency’s post-litigation release of records did not necessarily entitle plaintiff to litigation costs, because agency explained that end of post-conviction proceedings triggered release of records; (3) even if plaintiff were eligible for costs, he was not entitled to them because records conferred no benefit to the public and agency’s actions were reasonable.

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

Court opinion issued June 25, 2020

Lotero-Diaz v. USCIS (S.D. Fla.) -- ruling that: (1) plaintiff’s FOIA claim was moot because agency produced all responsive records, albeit after the litigation commenced, and (2) plaintiff was not entitled to relief under Administrative Procedure Act claim because FOIA provided adequate remedy.

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

Court opinion issued June 23, 2020

Freeman v. Fine (11th Cir.) (unpublished) -- summarily affirming district court’s decision that: (1) plaintiff’s FOIA claim was moot because Defense Department produced requested documents, and (2) FOIA did not provide plaintiff or court with authority to demand that agency investigate his whistleblower complaint.

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

Court opinion issued June 16, 2020

Tremaine v. U.S. Customs & Border Prot. (W.D. Wash.) -- concluding that agency failed to perform reasonable search for records about agency’s policies or practices of finding aliens inadmissible for entry to the United States based on their involvement in foreign cannabis businesses.

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