Hucul v. HHS (S.D. Cal.) -- granting summary judgment to government because plaintiff declined to oppose two of three requested items and because agency reasonably interpreted scope of plaintiff’s remaining request and performed adequate search for responsive records.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- concluding that Secret Service properly relied on Exemptions 7(E and 7(F) to withhold hotel room rates paid by the government to Trump resort in Scotland, as well as the estimated amount the Secret Service spent on meals and incidental expenses at the resort, because “releasing the requested data could help outsiders predict the size of future Secret Service details, which could render the Secret Service more vulnerable to circumvention and increase the risk of physical harm to agents and protectees alike.”
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Judicial Watch v. FDA (D.D.C.) -- in case involving government’s acquisition of human fetal tissue for research, concluding that: (1) government improperly relied on Exemption 4 to withhold names and addresses of laboratories because it failed to adequately explain how such information qualified as “commercial” information; and (2) government improperly withheld unit prices and line-item amounts pursuant to Exemption 4, because plaintiff demonstrated that such information was in the public domain. Lastly, the court noted that Exemption 4 could not be used to protect illegal business practices and that there was reason to believe that the government’s transactions with a laboratory were unlawful, but the court found it unnecessary to reach a decision on that issue,
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Am. Civil Liberties Union v. ICE (S.D.N.Y.) -- ruling that ICE was not required to create and substitute unique identifiers for alien numbers maintained in database, notwithstanding agency’s prior practice of providing different identifiers to other FOIA requesters.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Kwoka v. IRS (D.C. Cir.) -- vacating denial of request for fees; holding that the district court abused its discretion by weighing several factors in the entitlement analysis against the requester; directing the district court to “evaluate the reasonableness of the IRS’s” argument that, at the time of the initial request, it believed segregating exempt and non-exempt materials would impose an unreasonable burden; further directing the district court to re-balance the factors of the fee entitlement analysis.
Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. BLM (D.D.C.) -- denying the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment concerning adequacy of the agency’s search for records responsive to a pair of requests about E.O. 13783 and Secretary’s Order 3338; noting the requester’s belief that certain draft records, which were missing from the agency’s production, exist “carries more than just speculative weight,” and calling alternative theories advanced by the agency “implausible and, if true, deeply troubling”; describing much of the agency’s supporting declaration as conclusory and deficient; directing the agency to request that former Secretary Zinke “search his own [personal] files for any agency records they may contain, to detail ‘its best efforts’ to retrieve records from the former Secretary, and to provide ‘any further evidence it is able to obtain’”; further directing the agency to seek the former Secretary’s assistance with accessing two work-issued cell phones, and to better describe efforts to obtain records from the phones; and requiring clarification from the agency with respect to records reflecting communications with the Trump Transition Team.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Glennborough Homeowners Ass'n v. USPS (E.D. Mich.) -- dismissing FOIA claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because requests were submitted by another party and made no reference to plaintiff.
Mich. Immigrant Rights Ctr. v. DHS (E.D. Mich.) -- finding that plaintiff was eligible and entitled to attorney’s fees and costs in case concerning records of agency searches and seizures in Michigan, but requiring parties to confer on recoverable amount based on court’s conclusion that certainly hourly rates and billing entries were improper.
Shapiro v. SSA (D. Vt.) -- ruling that: (1) plaintiff’s clarified request was unreasonably broad and burdensome because it contained no time limitations or custodian limitations (among other things) and implicated approximately 1.5 million responsive pages, which would take the agency at least 193,211 hours of work to process; (2) agency improperly charged fees for its untimely initial response; and (3) plaintiff’s request for costs was “a close call” and could not be adjudicated until agency justified its withholdings in connection with its initial response.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Berryhill v. Bonneville Power Admin. (D. Or.) -- denying plaintiff’s request for attorney’s fees because plaintiff was unable to show that agency’s discretionary disclosure of additional material was triggered by his lawsuit, and because agency properly withheld records pursuant to Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv. v. Sierra Club (U.S.) -- in 7-2 decision, ruling that agency properly relied on Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to withhold draft biological opinions that were prepared by lower-level staff and never approved by decisionmakers or sent to EPA as it requested per Endangered Species Act.
Rocky Mountain Wild, Inc. v. U.S. Forest Serv. (D. Colo.) -- finding that agency performed reasonable for records pertaining to Village at Wolf Creek project and that it properly withheld records pursuant to Exemptions 4, 5, and 6. Of note, agency telephone conference line numbers and access codes were held to be protected under Exemption 5’s “commercial” privilege.
Farmworker Justice v. USDA (D.D.C.) -- in case involving records of agency’s H-2A visa program, determining that: (1) agency improperly relied on Exemption 4 to withhold company CEO’s views on proposed legislation, because the same information was shared with an organization with membership of 265,000 people; (2) agency’s declaration and brief were too conclusory to justify Exemption 5 claims, and agency failed to articulate a specific foreseeable harm connected to the redacted records.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Rojas v. FAA (9th Cir.) (en banc) -- holding that: (1) “consultant corollary” doctrine applied to documents prepared for agency by outside consulting firm and affirming district court’s decision that two of three disputed documents were protected by Exemption 5’s attorney work-product privilege; (2) agreeing with three-judge panel that FAA was not required to search outside consultant’s files and that agency did not adequately justify the adequacy of search of its own files.
Sabra v. U.S Customs & Border Prot. (D.D.C.) -- ruling that plaintiff was not entitled to any declaratory or injunctive relief where agency failed to meet statute’s response deadlines, and deferring decision as to whether agency performed adequate search or properly withheld records.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.
Sierra Club v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife (D.D.C.) -- rejecting agency’s deliberative process privilege claims, ordering release of final agency’s final scientific report pertaining to status of certain deer on endangered-species list, and permitting agency to renew its arguments for withholding draft reports and related commentary.
Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. GSA (D.D.C.) -- ordering in camera review of certain communications pertaining to renovation of FBI headquarters that GSA had withheld under Exemptions 5 and 7(E), and requiring agency to file supplemental Vaughn Index addressing portion of those records.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.