July 28, 2025
Glenwood Springs Citizens All. v. Dep’t of the Interior (D. Colo.) — granting the government’s motion for summary judgment; rejecting the requester’s objections to one of the agency’s declarations “as hearsay,” and explaining that, in the FOIA context, an affidavit need not be provided by an “‘individual who participated in the actual search’”; holding the agencies conducted a reasonable search, despite not searching their headquarters offices in Washington, D.C., which were determined unlikely to hold relevant records; concluding the agencies properly invoked Exemption 4 to protect certain sales reports and escrow account calculation files, as well as Exemption 5, in conjunction with the attorney-client, attorney work-product, and confidential commercial information privileges; notably omitting any analysis vis-a-vis the agencies’ satisfaction of the foreseeable-harm standard.
Farm Labor Organizing Comm. v. Dep’t of Labor (D.D.C.) — granting in part the requester’s motion for summary judgment; holding that, as to information about certain tobacco buyers “already in the public domain,” the agency’s invocation of Exemption 4 must fail as the information is not “confidential”; noting, in its articulation of the appropriate legal standards, that under the foreseeable-harm standard most courts have required an agency to show how disclosure of Exemption 4-protected information would “harm an interest protected by this exemption, such as by causing genuine harm to . . . economic or business interests”; noting further that the agency failed to provide “non-hearsay" evidence” about the objections of certain tobacco growers, whether they treat their buyers’ identifies as confidential, and whether disclosure would harm their economic interests; declining to decide, for now, whether courts should “determine whether information is ‘confidential’ . . . [by] look[ing] only to how the party who submitted that information to the government . . . treats it”—an issue not yet addressed by any court; finally, ordering renewed briefing.
Roland v. Dep’t of Justice (N.D. Ill.) — granting the government’s motion to dismiss with prejudice; holding the pro se requester’s “frivolous” claims were moot because the FBI and DOJ Criminal Division provided responses before the filing of the complaint, the requester did not file any administrative appeals, and the complaint included no factual allegations challenging the adequacy of the agencies’ searches for responsive records.
July 29, 2025
Cury v. Dep’t of State (W.D. Wash.) — granting the agency’s motion for summary judgment; holding the agency properly invoked Exemption 3, in conjunction with Section 222(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which implicates records “pertaining to the issuance or refusal of vias or permits to enter the United States”; noting that, while “[t]he Ninth Circuit has not considered whether the protections of INA § 222(f) extend to visa revocation documents,” other courts of appeal have “held that they do”; rejecting the requester’s arguments not to follow the Second and Eleventh Circuits on that front.
Webster v. Fed. Bureau of Investigation (D.D.C.) — granting the agency’s motion for summary judgment; holding the agency properly issued a Glomar response to decline to confirm or deny the existence of records about an FBI investigation into a D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officer assaulted by the pro se requester, a convicted January 6th participant; rejecting the requester’s argument that the FBI either waived its Glomar response by officially acknowledging an investigation into the police officer, or that the public interest in disclosure overrode any privacy interests in the fact of such investigation under Exemptions 6 and 7(C).
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.
