Court opinions issued June 11-12, 2025

June 12, 2025

Huddleston v. FBI (E.D. Tex.) -- denying without prejudice plaintiff’s motion to substitute a third party to continue FOIA lawsuit because plaintiff did not mention third party by name or his purported interest in the requested information “throughout the over four years of litigation,” nor did plaintiff produce evidence that the third party had accepted the proposed substitution as party plaintiff.

June 11, 2025

Viola v. DOJ (D.D.C.) —determining that: (1) FBI performed adequate search for certain records concerning an FBI informant; (2) FBI properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to withhold identifying information about FBI’s special agents and professional staff, as well as other third party individuals; (3) information provided by FBI’s source was impliedly confidential and properly withheld under Exemption 7(D); (4) FBI properly withheld “non-public details about its storage device and identification number used to collect investigatory evidence” under Exemption 7(E); (5) FBI’s categorical withholding of an “informant file” consisting of evidentiary/investigative and administrative materials was proper under Exemption 7(D); and (6) FBI met FOIA’s foreseeable harm and segregability requirements.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinions issued June 10, 2025

Grey v. Alfonso-Royals (4th Cir.) -- affirming district court's decision granting USCIS summary judgment and ruling that the agency properly redacted training materials under Exemption 7(E); notably, rejecting requester’s argument that Exemption 7(E) required a showing of risk of circumvention of the law for techniques or procedures, citing “basic rules of grammar and punctuation”; further, dismissing requester’s challenge to a provisional sealing and protective order, noting it was rendered moot by the district court's final ruling that authorized the redactions under FOIA.

Rudometkin v. United States (D.C. Cir.) -- reversing in part and granting in part district court’s decision concerning records related to requester’s military conviction, holding that: (1) U.S. Department of Defense properly relied on Exemption 5, rejecting requester’s argument that a “government misconduct” exception exists; (2) foreseeable harm was “manifest” due to the sensitive nature of disputed records, namely selecting a chief trial judge; (3) both the government and district court failed to adequately analyze whether non-exempt, reasonably segregable information could be released without causing harm; and (4) upholding the denial of requester’s motion to amend his complaint, because the FOIA claim he sought to add was being litigated in a separate, active case.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinion issued June 4, 2025

Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. CDC (D.D.C.) -- denying plaintiff’s request for a preliminary injunction requiring HHS to expedite processing of plaintiff’s requests concerning CDC’s FOIA operations; reasoning, in part, that plaintiff would not suffer irreparable harm because the requested records were “not so integral to a time-sensitive debate that they will lose their value without expedited processing and production.”

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinion issued June 2, 2025

Pomares v. U.S. Dep't of Veterans Affairs (S.D. Cal.) -- on reversal and remand from the Ninth Circuit, ruling that: (1) agency properly reprocessed email messages and released certain names that had been redacted under Exemption 6; (2) agency properly relied on Exemptions 6 and 7(C) to withhold names and personal information of third parties that appeared in Inspector General interview transcripts, which agency had previously withheld in full pursuant to Exemption 7(E); (3) agency failed to sufficiently demonstrate that it processed all exhibits referenced in the interview transcripts; and (4) court would not consider two new arguments raised for the first time in plaintiff’s reply brief, nor would it grant plaintiff’s discovery request.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinion issued May 29, 2025

Biear v. Attorney Gen. (3rd Cir.) (per curiam) -- affirming district court’s decision to deny pro se requester’s motion to reopen FOIA case and concluding that that FBI and Criminal Division complied with district court’s orders to release supplemental information material.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinions issued May 27, 2025

Libarov v. ICE (7th Cir.) -- affirming district court’s decision and holding that: (1) requester was not entitled to a declaratory judgment that ICE violated FOIA for missing statutory response deadline; (2) district court did not clearly err in ruling—after in camera review—that Exemption 7(A) protected investigatory information concerning requester’s sham marriage; and (3) requester could not maintain an Administrative Procedure Act claim against ICE for an alleged policy of delaying FOIA responses, because FOIA provided an adequate remedy.

Alper v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- ruling that: (1) FBI could not rely on Exemption 7(A) to withhold in full all records concerning plaintiff, a death-row inmate who murdered a sheriff’s deputy in 1995, because agency failed to show how disclosure of records would compromise government’s position at two pending enforcement proceedings; (2) FBI properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to withhold identities of FBI personnel, other law enforcement personnel, and civilian third parties; (3) FBI did not show that Exemption 7(D) protected information about cooperative efforts provided by a foreign law enforcement agency more than 30 years ago; (4) FBI properly invoked Exemption 7(E) to withheld identities of investigative databases it used, but a discrepancy with agency’s Vaughn Index precluded use of same exemption to withhold documents requesting assistance from foreign law enforcement agency; and (5) FBI properly invoked Exemption 5’s attorney-client privilege to withhold communications between DOJ counsel and an FBI special agent regarding legal guidance.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinion issued May 15, 2025

Tovar v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- dismissing plaintiff’s claim against the Drug Enforcement Administration for access to records about himself on the ground that he failed to appeal the DEA’s denial before filing suit; rejecting as irrelevant the plaintiff’s argument that the DEA’s final response was untimely, as the agency cured any delay by issuing a final determination before the lawsuit was filed.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinion issued May 6, 2025

Conflict Kinetics, LLC v. Program Exec. Office—Simulation, Training, & Instrumentation (E.D. Va.) -- granting on mootness grounds Defense Department component’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s claim that disputed government’s failure to respond at all, because DOD issued a final response two days after plaintiff filed its lawsuit; denying government’s motion to dismiss as moot count plaintiff’s claim objecting to records withheld under various exemptions, because that claim “is not an issue of this Court's jurisdiction, but one to be decided on the merits.”

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinions issued May 5, 2025

Texas Pub. Policy Found. v. U.S. Dep’t of State (5th Cir.) -- reversing lower court in a 2-1 decision and holding that Exemption 6 did not protect the names and email addresses of rank-and-file State Department employees (i.e., non-policy makers) who were involved in developing President Biden’s emissions reduction target after rejoining the Paris Agreement; the majority found that the Department’s fears about potential harassment, doxing, or unwanted attention were not substantiated with credible evidence; that there was a significant public interest in understanding how government policy is formed, even when those involved are not senior officials; and that work-issued emails did not merit the same privacy protections as personal information; the dissent opined that Exemption 6 protected the names and email addresses of rank-and-file employees because their participation in “a high-profile and controversial matter” could expose them to harassment, whereas the rescinded nature of the emissions pledge weakened public interest in disclosure.

Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- ruling that DHS properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to withhold the identity of a Secret Service agent who had communicated with the founder of Oath Keepers concerning its potential presence at a September 2020 presidential rally; rejecting plaintiff’s argument that the communications at issue were created for political purposes rather than to fulfill the agency’s law enforcement mission; further, in weighing the agent’s privacy interests against any public interest in disclosure, the court rejected plaintiff’s argument that the agent acted improperly or that disclosure would shed additional light on Secret Service’s operations.

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.

Court opinion issued May 1, 2025

Bell v. FBI (S.D. Ill.) -- dismissing plaintiff’s claim because she failed to exhaust her administrative remedies when she filed suit without first administratively appealing FBI’s timely determination (finding no responsive records).

Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.