Levitt v. IRS (N.D. Ala.) -- dismissing case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because plaintiff lacked Article III standing, having submitted the FOIA request on behalf of his client while filing the lawsuit in his personal capacity.
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.
Malik v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- on renewed summary judgment, concluding that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services properly relied on Exemptions 7(E) and 7(C) to redact a “Memo for the Record” concerning plaintiff’s application for employment with the agency; noting that the agency’s supplemental declaration explained that the memo in question discussed the Office of Personnel Management's background investigation of plaintiff, which qualified as a law enforcement purpose under Exemption 7.
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.
Campaign for Accountability v. DOJ (D.C. Cir.) -- affirming in part and reversing in part the district court’s decision and holding that Office of Legal Counsel’s (OLC) opinions are not subject to FOIA’s “reading-room” disclosure requirements because they are not “final opinions made in the adjudication of cases” nor “statements of policy or interpretations adopted by the agency; vacating the district court’s order requiring disclosure of OLC opinions resolving interagency disputes, reasoning that OLC opinions offer prospective legal advice, not binding orders or adjudications, and therefore do not resolve “cases” or have determinate consequences; noting that although OLC’s opinions are considered authoritative within the Executive Branch, they are not automatically adopted as the “working law” of client agencies unless an agency actually implements them as its own; in a concurring opinion, Judge Rao emphasized that appellant lacked standing because its claims were a generalized grievance without a particularized injury or concrete harm.
Husch Blackwell LLP v. Dep’t of Commerce (D.D.C.) -- in a case concerning records on how and why the Bureau of Industry and Security added certain companies to the “Entity List,” which restricts exports to foreign entities for national security reasons, ruling that: (1) BIS had not justified its withholding under Exemption 1, because its declarations merely repeated classification language without explaining how disclosure would harm national security; and (2) although the Export Control Reform Act qualifies as an Exemption 3 statute, BIS failed to show that withheld memoranda fit within the Ac’s enumerated or closely related categories.
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.
Informed Consent Action Network v. FDA (D.D.C.) -- granting 18-month stay after finding that FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) faced exceptional circumstances, specifically “skyrocketing” requests since 2019 and litigation rates that had “exploded” in same time period; noting that agency had demonstrated due diligence through staff reallocation, new hires, and a tiered response system; further noting that plaintiff was a “major contributor to the onslaught,” having submitted more than 350 FOIA requests to CBER and accounting for two-thirds of CBER's open FOIA lawsuits.
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.
Buckley v. DOJ (2nd Cir.) (unpublished) — affirming district court’s decision that: (1) the FBI properly relied on Exemptions 7(D) and 7(E) to withhold records concerning their domestic terrorism investigation of plaintiff-appellant, which concluded without charges, and (2) plaintiff-appellant was ineligible for attorneys’ fees. The Court rejected the argument that Exemption 7 was inapplicable because the records were allegedly compiled for “political reasons,” explaining that circuit precedent requires courts to presume that all investigatory records from law enforcement agencies are compiled for a law enforcement purpose. On fees, the court held that plaintiff-appellant failed to show he was a prevailing party under the catalyst theory. Notably, he failed to raise an argument in district court that earlier-submitted release forms supported his catalyst claim, thus precluding the Court from considering it on appeal.
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.
Informed Consent Action Network v. Ctrs. for Disease Control & Prevention (D.D.C.) — in a case involving access to records about COVID-19 vaccines, denying the requester’s fee motion on entitlement grounds; noting the parties agree that the requester is “eligible” to receive attorney’s fees; explaining that of the four factors to be considered when determining entitlement to a fee award, “the first three . . . weigh slightly in plaintiff’s factor,” but the fourth—i.e., the “reasonableness of the agency’s withholding”—”weighs heavily against plaintiff”; with respect to the fourth factor, concluding the agency’s application of Exemption 6 to withhold the names of CDC personnel was reasonable in light of a perceived “palpable threat” to employee privacy, and danger of harassment, at the time the request was submitted, and an assessment that the asserted public interest in disclosure was minimal.
Popov. v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec. (9th Cir.) (unpublished) — affirming district court’s decision that DHS properly withheld a third party’s Alien File under Exemption 6, noting that plaintiff-appellant failed to substantiate his allegations that the third party had committed any fraud or crimes or that DHS had acted improperly.
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.
Egana v. U.S. Dep't of Treasury (W.D.N.C.) -- deciding that the Bureau of Fiscal Service performed a reasonable search for records—and found none—related to a $10,000 Series E savings bond allegedly issued in 1964 in plaintiff’s name or under a custodian, claiming entitlement to over $91,000 in value.
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.
N.Y. Times Co. v. U.S. Def. Counterintelligence & Sec. Agency (S.D.N.Y.) — denying the government’s motion for summary judgment and ordering the release of a “single, two-page document listing any security clearances granted to Elon Musk”; rejecting the agency’s invocation of Exemptions 6 and 7(C); with respect to Exemption 6, concluding that “substantial public interests in disclosure” outweigh Mr. Musk’s valid, albeit “limited,” privacy interests; noting Mr. Musk’s past history of “publicly discuss[ing] his drug use, NASA’s requirement that he submit to random drug testing . . . , and his contacts with foreign leaders”; explaining that the public interest in disclosure is particularly strong for two reasons, namely, (1) “the public has an interest in knowing whether the leader of SpaceX and Starlink holds the appropriate security clearances,” and (2) because “courts have repeatedly recognized a public interest in understanding the thoroughness, fairness, and accuracy of government investigations and operations”; with respect to Exemption 7(C), bypassing the threshold inquiry of whether the record at issue was “compiled for law enforcement purposes,” and holding that the balancing inquiry favors disclosure.
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.
Dahlstrom v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- granting summary judgment to government after finding that USCIS performed a reasonable search for records about the “T visa” program; rejecting plaintiffs’ arguments that the agency’s search was deficient due to a narrow interpretation of the request, failing to search certain databases, and not using search terms and/or keywords preferred by plaintiffs.
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.
Ferguson v. DOJ (N.D. Ill.) -- determining that DOJ performed an adequate search for records related to the Prison Rape Elimination Act and the Justice for all Reauthorization Act, and that it properly withheld records under Exemptions 4, 5, and 6; noting that pro se plaintiff failed to follow local rules for filing a summary judgment motion—a deficiency that was itself fatal—but nevertheless proceeding to consider the merits and finding that plaintiff presented no evidence to contradict the government’s showing.
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.