Court opinions issued Aug. 25, 2020

Farah v. DOJ (D. Minn.) -- concluding that incarcerated pro se plaintiff constructively exhausted his administrative remedies even though Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys allegedly issued partial determination before plaintiff filed suit, because plaintiff alleged that he never received EOUSA’s determination and EOUSA failed to respond to plaintiff’s telephone messages regarding the status of his request.

White v. DOJ (S.D. Ill.) -- denying in part plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration of court’s summary judgment determination, and ordering hearing with respect to plaintiff’s motion to hold U.S. Marshals Service in contempt for delinquency and misrepresenting the Court.

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

Court opinion issued Aug. 21, 2020

Machado Amadis v. DOJ (D.C. Cir.) -- affirming district court’s decision that: (1) State Department and DEA performed reasonable searches for records concerning their processing of plaintiff’s prior FOIA requests; (2) Office of Information Policy properly declined to process certain DEA and FBI documents contained in plaintiff’s OIP appeal files because plaintiff’s request asked for only records “memorializing or describing the processing” of plaintiff’s prior appeals; (3) OIP properly relied on Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to withhold portions of staff’s appeal recommendation forms; (4) OIP reasonably explained why statute’s foreseeable harm provision was satisfied, noting that agency had considered "information at issue’” and concluded that disclosure “‘would’ chill future internal discussions”; and 5) plaintiff was not excused from administratively appealing “no records” responses issued by DEA and FBI merely because agencies offered to perform additional searches if plaintiff supplied additional information

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

Court opinions issued Aug. 14, 2020

In re: Hillary Clinton (D.C. Cir.) -- finding that district court clearly abused its discretion in authorizing depositions of Hillary Clinton and Cheryl Mills, and granting the former’s petition for mandamus but not the latter’s because Ms, Mills had other means to attain relief.

Whitaker v. Dep’t of Commerce (2nd Cir.) -- affirming district court’s decision that : (1) the First Responder Network Authority, an independent entity within the Department of Commerce’s (DOC) National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), was not subject to FOIA; and (2) DOC and NTIA properly declined to search for requested records because such searches would have been futile, adopting D.C. Circuit’s standard.

Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. U.S Dep’t of Commerce (D.D.C.) -- concluding that: (1) Department waived use of deliberative process privilege because it disclosed disputed records to third party and took no steps to rectify the disclosure; and (2) Department properly relied on Exemption 4 to withhold records provided under implied assurance of confidentiality.

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

Court opinions issued Aug. 13, 2020

James Madison Proj. v. Dep’t of the Treasury (D.D.C.) -- ruling that Office of the Comptroller of the Currency properly relied on Exemption 8 to withhold its final conclusions of its examinations of forty banks with respect to their sales practices.

Arab Am. Inst. v. OMB (D.D.C.) -- concluding after in camera review of disputed documents that OMB properly relied on Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to withhold draft recommendations and proposals concerning use of “Middle Eastern and North African” as race category in 2020 Census.

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

Court opinions issued Aug. 12, 2020

Wattleton v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- deciding that plaintiff failed to show that DOJ or OIP received his administrative appeal, which was improperly addressed, and that no extraordinary circumstances existed to excuse his improper mailing.

Hall & Assoc. v. EPA (D.D.C.) -- holding that agency properly relied on Exemption 6 to withhold email distribution lists constructed primarily by individual users who voluntarily signed up to receive agency updates.

Stelmaszek v. Dep't of Veterans Affairs (D.D.C.) -- finding that agency released in full all records in response to one of plaintiff’s requests, and that agency was not responsible for processing second request that plaintiff sent to wrong address.

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

Court opinions issued Aug. 11, 2020

Nat’l Sec. Counselors v. CIA (D.C. Cir.) -- ruling that: (1) district court properly decided that CIA was not required to disclose list of FOIA requesters by fee category, because agency’s FOIA database did contain such information; (2) affirming district court’s decision that request to CIA seeking all records about IBM supercomputer named “Watson” imposed unreasonably burdensome search; and (3) DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel was not required to release additional portions of two agency legal opinions, rejecting argument that attorney-client privilege had been waived.

Boyd v. Trump (D.D.C.) -- finding that incarcerated pro se plaintiff improperly named various government individuals as defendants and failed to show that he submitted FOIA requests to any Executive Branch agency.

Langston v. DHS (D. Ariz.) -- concluding that DHS properly relied on Exemption 3, in conjunction with National Security Act, in refusing to confirm or deny existence of records about plaintiff.

Abakporo v. EOUSA (D.D.C.) — upon government’s unopposed renewed summary judgment, determining that EOUSA properly searched for and disclosed all records pertaining to specific grand jury records of interest to plaintiff.

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

Court opinions issued Aug. 10, 2020

Ossen LLC v. U.S. Cent. Command (2nd Cir.) -- reversing and vacating district court’s decision that DOD had previously disclosed--and thus had improperly withheld pursuant to Exemption --certain classified images of terrorist attacks in Iraq.

Carlborg v. Dep’t of the Navy (D.D.C.) -- finding that agency performed adequate search for records pertaining to plaintiff’s involuntary separation from the military and properly withheld records pursuant to Exemption 5 and 6.

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

Court opinion issued Aug. 7, 2020

Lukas v. FCC (D.C. Cir.) (per curiam) -- holding that: (1) plaintiff failed to allege that FCC had “policy or practice” of failing to respond to FOIA appeals; (2) plaintiff forfeited his challenge to district court’s dismissal of his claim seeking declaration that Universal Service Administrative Company was not an agency for FOIA purposes, because he failed to address issue in his opposition brief; and (3) summarily affirming district court’s decision that agency properly withheld records pursuant to Exemption 4, but sidestepping issue of whether disputed records were “agency records.”

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

Court opinions issued Aug. 6, 2020

Ctr. for Public Integrity v. DOD (D.D.C.) -- deferring ruling on government’s exemption claims and ordering government to submit for in camera review certain records pertaining to the “Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative” that were withheld under Exemption 5.

Abdulkader v. Trump (D.D.C) -- dismissing case because plaintiff sued wrong defendants and failed to show that any federal agency received proper FOIA request.

Whitey v. FBI (W.D. Wash.) -- ruling that FBI properly relied on Exemption 7(D) in refusing to confirm or deny existence of records indicating whether deceased individual was agency informant, and denying plaintiff’s request for discovery or in camera review.

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

Court opinions issued Aug. 5, 2020

Besson v. U.S. Dep’t of Commerce (D.D.C.) -- on renewed summary judgment, ruling that: (1) agency failed to demonstrate that names of contractor’s employees qualified as “commercial” information under Exemption 4; (2) agency properly withheld agreement with contractor pursuant to Exemption 4, except for portion of Statement of Work that might appear in public domain; (3) agency failed to establish that contractor’s names were protected under Exemption 6.

Frank LLP v. CFPB (D.D.C.) -- finding that agency properly relied on Exemptions 7(A), 7(C), and 7(E) to withhold agency transcripts of third-party testimony associated with certain enforcement actions.

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