Court opinions issued Sept. 2-3, 2021

Sept. 3, 2021

Jordan v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- ruling, in most relevant part, that: (1) EOUSA performed adequate search for records concerning plaintiff’s prior FOIA litigation with the Department of Labor; (2) collateral estoppel barred plaintiff from re-litigating government’s use of Exemption 4 to withhold certain email; (3) EOUSA properly withheld records pursuant to Exemption 5’s work-product and deliberative process privileges, as well as Exemption 6, except for certain contact information that was publicly available.

Sept. 2, 2021

Long v. ICE (D.D.C.) -- finding that ICE was not required to produce various fields of data pertaining to immigration removals because such production would require the creation of new records, not merely sorting a preexisting database of information.

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

Court opinion issued Aug. 27, 2021

Knight First Amendment Inst. at Columbia Univ. v. CIA (D.C. Cir.) -- affirming district court’s decision that four intelligence agencies properly relied on Exemption 1 in refusing to confirm or deny the existence of certain records pertaining to Jamal Khashoggi. In reaching its decision, the Court rejected the appellant’s primary argument that Glomar responses were precluded by official statements made by a State Department spokesperson.

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

Court opinion issued Aug. 26, 2021

Marino v. DEA (D.D.C.) -- finding that agency conducted adequate search for records concerning third party, timely invoked exemptions to withhold certain records, and released all reasonably segregable, non-exempt records

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

Court opinion issued Aug. 25, 2021

N.Y. Times v. DOD (S.D.N.Y.) -- concluding that DOD properly relied on Exemptions 1, 3, 5, 6, 7(C), and 7(E) to redact portions of a report concerning thee removal of Rear Admiral John Ring from his position as Commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay.

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

Court opinion issued Aug. 24, 2021

Prot. Democracy Proj. v. NSA (D.C. Cir.) -- affirming district court’s decision that NSA properly relied on Exemption 5’s presidential communications privilege to withhold in its entirety a memo documenting a telephone call between the NSA Director and President Trump, rejecting plaintiff’s arguments that the privilege was subject to FOIA’s segregability requirement and waived by disclosures in the Mueller Report.

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

Court opinion issued August 23, 2021

Aguirre v. NRC (9th Cir.) -- affirming district court’s decision that plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies with respect to his four requests concerning the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, and notably joining other circuits in holding that “a requestor must exhaust his administrative remedies under FOIA so long as an agency properly responds before suit is filed.”

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

Court opinion issued August 20, 2021

Cause of Action Inst. v. OMB (D.C. Cir.) — affirming district court’s decision that Internet browsing histories of OMB and USDA officials did not qualify as “agency records,” because “the agencies’ retention and access policies for browsing histories, along with the fact that they did not use any of the officials’ browsing histories,” indicated that the agencies did not control the requested records.

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

Court opinion issued Aug. 18, 2021

Pickard v. DOJ (N.D. Cal.) -- deciding, in most relevant part, that plaintiff’s challenge to authenticity of a document released by the Drug Enforcement Agency was beyond the court’s jurisdiction and remedial powers to address.

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

Court opinions issued Aug. 17, 2021

Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. USPS (D.D.C.) -- finding that: (1) agency improperly invoked Exemption 3, in conjunction with the Postal Reorganization Act, to withhold Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s financial disclosures, recusal and divestiture obligations, and related communications with the Office of Government Ethics; (2) Exemption 5’s attorney-client privilege did not apply to records exchanged between DeJoy or USPS and OGE’s ethics counsel; and (3) agency improperly relied on Exemptions 5’s deliberative process privilege, as well as Exemption 6, to withhold recusal memoranda.

Judicial Watch v. U.S. Dep’t of State (D.D.C.) -- ruling that agency properly relied on Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to withhold records pertaining to CrowdTangle, a social media monitoring program, and that statute’s foreseeable harm standard was met despite agency’s generic explanations for certain redactions.

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

Court opinions issued Aug. 16, 2021

King v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- concluding that ICE performed adequate search for audio recording made by an informant in 2003 in connection with an agency investigation of a murder.

Kovalevich v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- ruling that: (1) case was moot because plaintiff conceded that EOUSA has fulfilled its obligation to provide him with records about himself, notwithstanding redactions; and (2) pro se plaintiff was ineligible for attorney’s fees and the parties failed to adequately brief plaintiff’s request for litigation costs.

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