Farahi v. Fed. Bureau of Investigation (D.C. Cir.) — affirming the district court; holding that the requester’s FBI file was protected against disclosure under Exemption 7(A); noting, at the outset, that the district court properly recognized the FBI had “carried its burden” to demonstrate the records at issue were compiled for law enforcement purposes; noting further that the lower court “correctly concluded that disclosure could be reasonably expected to interfere with pending or reasonably anticipated enforcement proceedings” given the requester’s past history and longstanding ties to the “Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood,” “Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and other known Al Qaeda members,” and “multiple convicted or indicted terrorists,” including “Jose Padilla”; rejecting the requester’s objection to the FBI’s categorical use of the exemption; determining the agency had taken reasonable steps to segregate and release nonexempt information from the FBI file, even though those efforts were largely described in an ex parte declaration.
Am. Transparency v. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs. (D.D.C) — in a case involving records about the payment of royalties—or so-called “inventor awards”—to employees of the National Institutes of Health, denying the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment; concluding the agency could not withhold the requested information pursuant to Exemption 6 because “[f]ederal government employees have a limited privacy interest in information about their compensation,” and “there is a clear public interest” vis-a-vis “question[ing] whether investors’ financial interests in the success of their technologies affects how they conduct clinical trials”; rejecting the agency’s asserted foreseeable harms under Exemption 6, such as violation of the “expectation of trust and confidentiality that licensees and inventors have with NIH,” and “limit[ing] bargaining opportunities” of employees once they leave government service; determining there is a “genuine dispute of material fact” as to whether Exemption 3, in conjunction with the Federal Transfer and Technology Act, and Exemption 4 might apply because it is unclear “whether it is possible to back-calculate how much a licensee pays in royalties from the amount NIH distributes to an individual inventor.”
McKathan v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec. (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion for summary judgment; holding that the pro se requester failed to exhaust administrative remedies with the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys by filing an appeal; rejecting the argument that the component’s non-adverse determination was improper because it lacked a notice about appeal rights; holding further that the Criminal Division conducted a reasonable search.
Doe v. Immigration & Customs Enf’t (D.D.C.) — in a case involving records about ICE’s improper disclosure of an asylum applicant’s confidential information, denying the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment and providing the agency “another opportunity” to defend its withholdings; holding that the agency had not sufficiently justified its use of Exemption 5; noting the agency did not explain how records withheld under the deliberative-process privilege actually played part of any “decisional process”; noting further that, while ICE had shown why the attorney-client privilege would apply in part to records reflecting requests for legal advice, it had not demonstrated the application of the privilege to documents reflecting the provision of legal advice; holding further that the agency failed to identify non-generic foreseeable harms from disclosure, and did not tie such harms to the records at issue; of particular note, concluding that ICE’s asserted foreseeable harms for records withheld under the attorney-client privilege were too “broad [and] categorial,” as the agency incorrectly assumed a “per se harm[]” stemming from “disclosing any attorney-client material” could satisfy the statutory standard.
Heritage Found. v. Dep't of Justice (D. Del.) — granting the government’s motion for summary judgment; holding that a declarant from the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys was competent of laying a factual foundation for defending the agency’s withholdings, despite not having first-hand knowledge of the underlying records, which originated in the Special Counsel’s Office; holding further that the agency properly applied Exemption 5 (together with the deliberative-process, attorney-client, and attorney work-product privileges) to various categories of records, including draft congressional correspondence and related internal communications, handwritten notes, and e-mail; concluding that DOJ properly withheld the names of U.S. Attorney’s Office employees and references to an employee family member under Exemption 6; finally, holding the agency properly withheld an internal file name used to reference the Hunter Biden investigation under Exemption 7(E).
Summaries of all published opinions issued in 2025 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2024 and from 2015 to 2023.