Court opinion issued Mar. 11, 2022

Am. Immigration Council v. U.S. Customs & Border Patrol (D.D.C.) -- deciding that: (1) CBP failed to perform adequate search for various records pertaining to pilot program allowing CBP officials to conduct asylum-related interviews; (2) DHS and USCIS did not provide sufficient information to justify its withholdings pursuant to Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege, nor did they satisfy statute’s foreseeable harm provision; and (3) government improperly relied on Exemptions 6 and 7(C) to withhold names of CBP officers appearing on one document.

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

Court opinions issued Mar. 9, 2022

S. Poverty Law Ctr. v. IRS (D.D.C.) -- ruling that IRS properly invoked Exemption 3 to withhold records prepared, furnished, or collected in connection with its criminal investigation of Tennessee slaughterhouse, because such records constituted return information under 26 U.S.C. § 6103(a).

Long v. U.S. Immigration & Customs Enf’t (N.D.N.Y.) -- concluding that ICE performed adequate database search concerning “Form I-247 Requests” relating to detainers and notices of release, and that agency was not mandated to create ‘new, complex queries and new records resulting from those newly created queries.’

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

Court opinion issued Mar. 8, 2022

Block v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- finding that EOUSA performed adequate search for records concerning plaintiff and government properly withheld records pursuant to Exemptions 3, 5, 7(C), 7(D), and 7(F).

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

Court opinions issued Mar. 1, 2022

Braun v. USPS (D.D.C.) -- finding that agency performed adequate search for records pertaining to plaintiff and properly invoked Exemption 7(C) to redact identities of law enforcement personnel.

Bagwell v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- in case involving records of investigations into possible child sexual abuse on Penn State’s campus, concluding that: (1) Executive Office for United States Attorneys could not categorically withhold set of records consisting of 11,648 pages of emails pursuant to Exemptions 3 (FRCP 6(e)), 6, 7(C), and 7(D); and (2) EOUSA properly relied on Exemptions 3 (FRCP 6(e)) and Exemption 5 (attorney work-product) to withhold second set of records; and (3) foreseeable harm provision enacted in 2016 did not retroactively apply to request made in 2014.

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

Court opinion issued Feb. 28, 2022

Naumes v. Dep’t of the Army (D.D.C.) -- ruling that: (1) Army performed reasonable search for records concerning online survey, but ordering agency to produce webpages available as embedded links in documents already released to plaintiff; (2) with respect to agency’s use of Exemption 4 to withhold survey questions from copyrighted sources, (a) agency failed to explain whether it copied or modified questions from the copyrighted sources; (b) agency must release withheld questions from any sources which are available publicly at no charge; (c) agency must confer with copyright holders for remaining non-public source materials about whether they treat those materials as confidential; (3) agency sufficiently showed foreseeable harm from disclosing copyrighted information.

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

Court opinion issued Feb. 25, 2022

Bernegger v. EOUSA (D.D.C.) -- concluding that EOUSA properly denied plaintiff’s fee waiver request associated with his request for access to his prosecution and conviction records.

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

Court opinion issued Feb. 22, 2022

Am. Civil Liberties Union Found. of N.H. v. U.S. Customs & Border Prot. (D.N.H.) -- ordering agency to file supplemental declaration addressing the scope of its search and why it found certain records to be non-responsive to plaintiff’s request, but ruling that agency’s original declaration and Vaughn Index provided court with sufficient information to evaluate agency’s segregability determinations.

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

Court opinion issued Feb. 17, 2022

Graham v. DHS (E.D. Cal.) -- holding that plaintiff’s claim was not time-barred when he filed suit exactly 6 years after ICE issued its second (and final) administrative appeal response, because —in the court's view -- the agency's timely-issued remand of plaintiff's first administrative appeal prevented plaintiff from exhausting his administrative remedies and thus delayed the accrual of his claim.

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

Court opinions issued Feb. 11, 2022

Graham v. FBI (D.D.C.) -- granting summary judgment to government after finding that plaintiff failed to identify any public policy harms that would override criminal justice interests favoring enforcement of plaintiff’s voluntary waiver of FOIA rights in his plea agreement.

Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. U.S. Dep’t of State (D.D.C.) -- deciding that: (1) agency did not submit sufficient information to permit court to evaluate whether agency properly invoked Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to withhold two categories of records concerning its handling of requests from congressional committee chairs; and (2) agency improperly redacted “simple statistics” and other factual information from weekly report that did not fall within deliberative process privilege or meet foreseeable harm provision.

Saterlee v. IRS (W.D. Mo.) -- ruling that: (1) agency performed adequate search, except in one instance, for various certificate of assessments and notices of federal tax liens concerning plaintiff; (2) agency failed to prove that it properly withheld employee’s oath of office pursuant to Exemption 6, but it properly used same exemption to withhold other records from employee’s personnel file.

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

Court opinion issued Feb. 10, 2022

Stonehill v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- in case involving investigatory records of plaintiff’s deceased husband’s business in the Philippines, concluding that: (1) Tax Division was permitted to amend its Answer to add res judicata defense, but rejecting agency’s defense on merits concerning request for “records from 1957-1976 concerning Mr. Stonehill”; (2) rejecting Tax Division’s res judicata defense to request concerning Philippine’s national bureau of investigations; (3) ordering agency to complete processing of request that it neglected for three years—which the court called “unacceptable”—and to justify any withholdings on renewed summary judgment; (4) Tax Division performed adequate search for records concerning government consultant, but finding agency’s earlier errors “troubling” and urging agency to take “greater care in the future”; (5) Tax Division properly relied on Exemptions 5, 6, and 7(C) to withhold some, but not all, records identified in the Tax Division’s opening brief and rejecting plaintiff’s assertion of government misconduct exception; and (6) Tax Division failed to justify its Exemption 5 withholdings for records located after it filed its opening brief and denying agency’s request to submit sampling Vaughn Index.

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