Court opinion issued May 24, 2023

Cause of Action Inst. v. NOAA (D.D.C.) -- concluding that agency’s search was inadequate because agency too narrowly defined what constituted the “agency records” of one of its regional Fishery Management Councils by only including correspondence “submitted to the chair” or “specifically discussed or disseminated at a Council meeting”; ordering agency to conduct a supplemental search of non-federal employee council members’ personal accounts and devices.

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

Court opinions issued May 23, 2023

Anand v. HHS (D.D.C.) -- ruling that the Office of Inspector General properly refused to search for “all reports from Blue Cross Blue Shield corporation to OIG concerning improper prescribing of opiates by specific physicians,” because the search would take the entire FOIA staff more than 9 years to complete (or one full-time employee 28 years at a cost of at least $3.5 million), which was deemed unduly burdensome.

Anthony v. BOP (D.D.C.) -- determining that: (1) plaintiff’s claim was moot with respect to four pages that BOP released in full; (2) plaintiff was not required to administratively appeal BOP’s denial of his expedition request before filing suit; and (3) plaintiff also was not required to administratively appeal BOP’s final decision on the merits, which postdated plaintiff’s lawsuit.

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

Court opinion issued May 16, 2023

Louise Trauma Ctr. v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- determining that plaintiff was both eligible and entitled to attorney’s fees and costs, but reducing requested fee award from $156k to $106k because: (1) plaintiff failed to show that the rate sought by its attorney rate was consistent with the prevailing market rate for similar legal services; (2) much of the attorney’s work was “needless, duplicative, or inefficient,” and the billing records lacked adequate details; and (3) plaintiff’s request for $45k for fees spent on its fee petition was unreasonable and would constitute an “unsupportable windfall.”

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

Court opinion issued May 12, 2023

Lawyers’ Comm. for Civil Rights v. OMB (D.D.C.) -- on renewed summary judgment, ruling that OMB sufficiently established that it properly relied upon Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege to withhold records concerning its decision to “halt its initiative for the collection of pay data from employers by the [EEOC]”; further finding that OMB satisfied the foreseeable harm standard by linking identifiable harms to specific information, and that it established that it produced all reasonably segregable information.

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

Court opinion issued May 11, 2023

Am. Civil Liberties Union of Mass. v. CIA (D. Mass.) -- concluding that CIA, ODNI, DOD, and NSA improperly issued Exemption 7(A) Glomar responses in connection with plaintiff’s request for President Trump’s alleged standing order declassifying documents taken from the Oval Office; finding that FBI did not sufficiently explain how its criminal investigation would be harmed if defendants searched for responsive records, particularly in light of the fact that three other intelligence agencies had already conducted searches and issued “no records” responses and that President Trump and multiple former Trump administration officials had issued statements on the matter.

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

Court opinion issued May 8, 2023

Am. Civil Liberties Union of Mass. v. ICE (D. Mass.) -- in cases concerning communications of seven agency officials regarding indictment of state judge and court officer for obstruction of justice, (1) denying agency’s renewed motion for summary judgment because it was prematurely filed and did not comport with local rules; and (2) ordering agency to provide additional information concerning its search for text messages on government-issued telephones.

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

Court opinion issued May 3, 2023

Cato Inst. v. DOD (D.D.C.) -- holding that plaintiff’s request for “any records from any . . . component pursuant to” Directive 5300.27 was not reasonably described, and rejecting plaintiff’s attempt in litigation to reframe the scope of its request; further rejecting plaintiff’s argument that the Department failed to notify plaintiff that its request was too vague, as required by Department regulations.

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

Court opinion issued Apr. 24, 2023

Judicial Watch v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- on renewed summary judgment, ruling that FBI reasonably foresaw that disclosure of certain talking points related to agency’s investigation of Hilary Clinton’s private email server would cause harms protected by Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege; noting that FBI articulated “the connection between the information at issue . . . and the chilling effect of disclosure, and rejecting plaintiff’s argument that a chilling effect that is “highly likely” is not “reasonably foreseeable.”

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

Court opinion issued Apr. 17, 2023

Council on American-Islamic Relations v. USCIS (D. Conn.) -- ruling that: (1) government failed to demonstrate that an immigration-related report was “closely held” within the Executive Branch, which precluded withholding it in full pursuant to Exemption 5’s presidential communications privilege; the presidential communications privilege covering the report was not waived by official disclosure; and government satisfied the foreseeable harm standard; (2) government properly withheld portions of the report pursuant to Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege, as well as Exemptions 1, 3, and 7(E); and (3) State Department properly invoked Exemption 7(E) to withhold information from “State Cable” and “Operational Q&A” documents. and it properly withheld a draft Paperwork Reduction Act-related document pursuant to the attorney-client and deliberative process privileges.

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

Court opinion issued Apr. 14, 2023

Heritage Found. v. EPA (D.D.C.) -- denying plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction in connection with its request for expedited processing of its request for records concerning a freight-train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio; reasoning that although one of the plaintiffs appeared to qualify as a person primarily engaged in disseminating information, plaintiffs did not demonstrate that they were likely to succeed on the merits as to whether there was an “urgency to inform the public” or that plaintiffs would suffer “irreparable harm.”

Cunningham v. HUD (E.D. Pa.) -- dismissing with prejudice plaintiff’s FOIA claims against individual employees and for money damages, but permitting plaintiff to amend complaint that failed to allege that he had exhausted his administrative remedies.

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