Court opinions

2026

Dates of decisions below.  Please contact us if any of the links are broken.  For additional sources of FOIA case law, see "Federal court cases" in Useful Links.

Mar. 12, 2026

Ananiades v. U.S. Dep't of Air Force (9h Cir.) (unpublished) -- affirming district court’s decision that the Air Force adequately searched for records that plaintiff provided to it as a contractor in 1984, noting that the relevant contract files were destroyed in 2004.

Zakarneh v. USCIS (D. Or.) -- granting summary judgment to government after determining that: (1) plaintiff’s claims for audio and video recordings of his own 2016 and 2018 immigration interviews were moot since they had already been produced; and (2) plaintiff’s remaining claims for his immigration records were barred for failure to exhaust administrative remedies because he failed to file timely agency appeals.

Mar. 11, 2026

Sherrod v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s second supplemental motion for summary judgment—that is, its third attempt to justify its treatment of records—in a case involving an inmate’s access to surveillance camera videotapes documenting his crimes; treating the motion as unopposed since the plaintiff “has not filed a response”; concluding that “Defendants have satisfied their burden to adduce evidence demonstrating a reasonably adequate search.”

Foreman v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion for summary judgment in a case involving a pro se inmate’s access to “various records related to his incarceration and medical treatment”; holding the agency properly redacted the names of certain correctional officers who interacted with the requester under Exemptions 6 and 7(C); noting the “heightened security concerns” about revealing the identifies are those officers working in the SHU context; noting also that the requester’s asserted public interest was actually a “personal interest in discerning potential defendants for his own litigation,” which should properly be pursued through civil discovery in separate litigation.

Bennett v. U.S. Postal Serv. (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion to dismiss; holding the pro se incarcerated requester failed to reasonably describe the records sought in his request; explaining the request was “impermissibly vague” because, in relevant part, it sought “every piece of information about any service ever offered by the United States Postal Service”; explaining how the requester also requested “contracts” without any further specificity.

Mar. 10, 2026

Jewell v. DHS (W.D. Wis.) -- holding that: (1) U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement and DOJ’s Criminal Division performed adequate searches for records concerning plaintiff’s criminal conviction for distributing child pornography; and (2) DOJ properly relied on Exemptions 6 and 7(C) to withhold records about third parties, as well as Exemption 7(F) to redact plaintiff’s name because disclosure could incite violence from other prisoners; and (3) rejecting DOJ’s supplemental use of Exemption 7(E) for the same withheld records, noting its skepticism that “criminals are actually reviewing documents from these types of investigations and gleaning insight on how to avoid detection.”

Mar. 9, 2026

Doe v. Dep’t of the Navy (D.D.C.) -- dismissing without prejudice a pro se plaintiff’s complaint seeking records about the Navy’s consideration of his naval officer commission application—including interview appraisal materials and board decision analyses—and documents explaining why a medical waiver was approved years after earlier denials; holding that the complaint did not clearly identify the requests at issue or plead facts showing that the Navy improperly withheld records or conducted an inadequate search, but allowing plaintiff 30 days to file amended complaint.

Mar. 6, 2026

Protect the Pub.'s Trust. v. USAID (D D.C.) -- dismissing plaintiff’s claim because the request was too vague and overbroad to allow USAID to determine which records were sought; the request asked for communications from certain USAID officials and broadly from “officials” in the White House, State, Treasury, and United Nations regarding the Taylor Force Act and U.S. funding to Palestinian territories, but it failed to identify most custodians, used imprecise terms for external officials, and left the funding scope and dates unclear.

Mar. 5, 2026

Am. Sec. Ass’n v. SEC (M.D. Fla.) -- granting in part and denying in part both parties’ summary judgment motions in a case seeking spreadsheets and similar records used by the SEC to determine penalties in its broker-dealer recordkeeping enforcement sweep; ruling that spreadsheets showing prospective penalty tiers for entities under investigation were protected opinion work product under Exemption 5, but spreadsheets reflecting final, imposed penalties and the underlying data considered were non-exempt.

McCann v. USCIS (E.D. La.) -- granting summary judgment to USCIS, holding that its supplemental declaration adequately explained the agency’s search for records concerning USCIS’s decision to issue a “Notice of Intent to Revoke Permanent Resident Status” and clarified that a disputed page had already been released.

Mar. 4, 2026

Judicial Watch, Inc. v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- concluding that DHS failed to show that it adequately searched for certain records concerning the Arizona border wall, noting that that the agency’s declarations did not sufficiently explain what systems were searched or whether it pursued leads to additional records.

Mar. 3, 2026

Informed Consent Action Network v. Nat’l Insts. of Health (D.D.C.) — in a case concerning access to records about the “removal of early COVID-19 genetic sequencing data from an NIH-administered database,” granting the agency’s motion for summary judgment; concluding that NIH properly invoked Exemption 6 to withhold two categories of records: (1) identifying information for “Chinese researchers” who “submitted data to the BioSample and SRA databases and later requested withdrawal of that data,” and (2) “identifying information for NIH employees who work on the SRA database”; noting substantial privacy interests were implicated, in part, due to the agency declarant’s citation to stories of “threats of violence” and “harassment” against individuals working on “controversial research”; rejecting the requester’s argument that the identifying information at issue was “‘key’ to understanding ‘the origins’ of the COVID pandemic and ‘how to prevent a public health crisis in the future’”; finally, concluding the agency satisfied the foreseeable-harm standard and its obligation to reasonably segregate non-exempt portions of records.

Barth v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — granting the agency’s motion for summary judgment against a pro se requester seeking records about himself, while also denying the requester’s motions for recusal and reconsideration; holding, in relevant part, that DOJ’s Office of Information Policy conducted an adequate search for records.

Am. Oversight v. U.S. Agency for Int’l Dev. (D.D.C.) — dismissing claims brought under the Federal Records Act and the Administrative Procedure Act concerning USAID’s alleged failure to preserve, or seek to recover, federal records, namely, “employee and contractor records” on government-issued electronic devises, certain other “physical records,” and “records stored on USAID’s website,” as nonjusticiable; rejecting the plaintiff’s theory of standing, which was predicated on “imminent threat of future injury from improper destruction or removal of relevant records” that would be responsive to its pending FOIA requests, which were also the subject of the instant litigation and have not been dismissed; describing portions of the plaintiff’s case as “speculative at best” vis-a-vis redressability.

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025,

Mar. 2, 2026

Slaughter v. Dep’t of the Air Force (D.D.C.) — ordering the agency to file supplemental declarations concerning the adequacy of its search for records, but granting the its motion for summary judgment as to the withholding of a video under Exemption 1; noting how “[t]he government has not provided details regarding the scope or methods of the initial search that was conducted before [the requester] filed suit, nor has it attempted to defend the adequacy of that search”; rejecting the agency’s argument that “supplemental searches conducting after this litigation began fulfilled its FOIA obligations”; with respect to Exemption 1, agreeing with the requester that the agency’s declaration is lacking in its description of “what portion of the information . . . is non-exempt and how that material is dispersed throughout” the video, but “binding D.C. Circuit precedent hold that the Court is to presume . . . no intelligible segments of non-exempt information can be reasonably segregated.’”

Pub. Emps. for Envtl. Resp. v. Envtl. Prot. Agency (D.D.C.) — in a pair of consolidated cases regarding records about suspected chemical contamination, and a reverse-FOIA claim to block their disclosure, granting the plaintiff’s motion to complete the administrative record; concluding the agency must include “initial Confidential Business Information (CBI) Substantiation Forms” provided by a submitter-company, as they reflect the submitter’s efforts to “substantiate its confidentiality claims,” as required by relevant statutes and agency regulations, and because the forms were used by the agency “to identify records to withhold in response to” the FOIA requests at issue; explaining that “[w]hether [the submitter’s] claims [against disclosure] are of any merit is a question left to be decided at summary judgment, but adequate review calls for evaluation of EPA’s treatment of the initial CBI substantiations.”

Haleem v. Dep’t of Def. (D.D.C) — denying a requester’s motion for fees; holding, firstly, that the requester was “eligible for fees” on a catalyst theory; noting the evidentiary record “shows an imperfect process replete with ‘administrative errors,’” “mismarked FOIA referrals,” and a “ten-month” gap where the agency “provides no explanation of its activities”; concluding, however, that the requester was not “entitled” to an award because there was no public benefit in disclosure, and the requester was motivated by a “substantial private interest in bringing . . . suit.”

Feb. 25, 2026

D.V.D. v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec. (D. Mass.) — in a class-action lawsuit concerning the removal of non-citizens to “so-called ‘third countries,’” granting the government’s motion to dismiss a FOIA claim concerning the affirmative disclosure of certain relevant agency guidance both for lack of standing and failure to state a claim for which relief can be granted; concluding, with respect to a dated guidance document, that plaintiffs failed to show “‘they sought and were denied specific agency records,’” and therefore lacked any “sign of a ‘concrete and particularized informational injury’”; yet noting the Court was assuming “a formal request [was] not absolutely necessary”; concluding also, regardless of whether the agency had failed to post the guidance document in its reading room, the plaintiffs already had a copy, which was attached to their complaint, and this “belie[d] any allegation that DHS’s reliance [on the guidance] constitute[d] harmful use of a ‘secret’ law against them”; further rejecting the “reading room” claim as it applied to unspecified “other statements of policy or instructions or guidance,” because it failed to “reasonably describe” the records at issue and, thus, could not provide the government with “fair notice” of what records should even have been proactively disclosed.

Levin v. Nat’l Highway Traffic Safety Admin. (D.D.C.) — granting in part and denying in part the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment in a case involving Exemption 5 and records about NHTSA’s proposed guidelines on “distracted driving”; largely rejecting the agency’s use of the deliberative-process privilege given its failure to “articulate any specific foreseeable harm from release,” as well as its decision instead to apply “boilerplate and generic assertions” to “six broad categories” of records; directing the agency to release these records, as “afford[ing] [the agency] a ‘second chance’ to explain [its] withholding” is unlikely to “aid NHTSA’s case,” especially since it has “already had two bites at the apple” in its opening brief and opposition to the requester’s cross-motion; rejecting certain assertions of the attorney-client privilege due to the agency’s failure to “articulate the connection between the documents withheld and the provision of legal advice,” and where it seems communications are just “strategic or policy discussions in which lawyers are simply included or copied,” or where they “describe logistical information about an attorney’s role in review processes or coordination”; otherwise accepting the agency’s attorney-client privilege arguments, as well as its satisfaction of the foreseeable-harm standard and its efforts to release all segregable factual information; finally, rejecting the agency’s invocation of the attorney work-product doctrine because it failed to “articulate[] any reason why litigation was foreseeable at the time of the creation of these documents.”

Feb. 24, 2026

Jensen v. Dep’t of the Navy (D.D.C.) — in a case involving a former Naval Academy midshipman seeking records about his expulsion, granting the government’s motion to dismiss all non-FOIA claims raised in the requester’s complaint; rejecting the Navy’s claim that the Privacy Act’s exhaustion requirement is jurisdictional, but otherwise agreeing that the requester’s failure to exhaust administrative remedies, which would be a “prudential precondition for a record-access claim,” “dooms” his Privacy Act claims here; explaining further, that with respect to the remaining non-FOIA claims that concern the requester’s access to records, the FOIA “provides an adequate remedy” and therefore forecloses relief under the Administrative Procedure Act, the All Writs Act, and the Declaratory Judgment Act.

Feb. 20, 2026

Aaronson v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — in a case involving an investigative journalist’s inquiry into the FBI’s “alleged impersonation of the media,” granting in part and denying in part the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment; concluding the FBI properly denied one of the reporter’s requests as “unduly burdensome” because it would have required searching for email records covering “a four-and-a-half-year period” across “more than 70,000 email accounts”; rejecting, in this regard, the requester’s argument that the FBI could “perform bulk, backend searches of its classified and unclassified email systems through its existing IT and e-discovery capabilities”; ruling against the government vis-a-vis its failure to perform an adequate search “in one respect,” namely, looking for potentially responsive records maintained by the Undercover Review Committee; holding moreover that the FBI did not justify its categorical Glomar response based on Exemptions 6 and 7(C) as any records that mention “Brent Tyler”—a pseudonym for an FBI employee—would not implicate those exemptions’ underlying privacy concerns because no “person’s privacy is at stake”; finally, explaining that, after reviewing an in camera declaration from the FBI, if the agency had, in fact, invoked a statutory exclusion, that invocation “was and remains amply justified.”

Khan v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec. (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion for summary judgment; holding, firstly, that plaintiffs did not exhaust administrative remedies for two of the requests at issue because they failed to file appeals, and rejecting the requesters’ argument that untimely determinations “alleviated the appeal requirement”; also holding that the government met its burden to show it performed adequate searches for potentially responsive records and noting, contrary to the requesters’ insistence, that there was no evidence of “bad faith”; finally, concluding the agencies properly invoked Exemptions 3, 5, 6, 7(C), and 7(F).

Bradley v. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs (N.D. Fla.) — adopting in full a magistrate judge’s Report and Recommendation and dismissing a pro se, in forma pauperis requester’s FOIA case for “failure to comply with court orders,” namely, directions to file an amended complaint that addressed several pleading deficiencies.

Feb. 19, 2026

Powell v. Dep’t of the Treasury (D.D.C.) — granting the IRS’s dispositive motions; noting, at the outset, that it is unclear whether the IRS or the Treasury is the proper named defendant, but “reserv[ing] that question for another day,” since it would make “no practical difference” here; concluding, firstly, that the requester’s non-FOIA claims under the APA, Section 6103, and the Mandamus Act should be dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6); concluding further that the requester’s FOIA claims were not properly exhausted because he “did not perfect his FOIA requests” prior to filing suit by providing the IRS with the necessary proof of the “right to access the requested records,” which included “various tax documents associated with his family’s business entities”; rejecting the agency’s suggestion that an administrative appeal was required, given its regulations which suggest the closure of the requests was not, in fact, an adverse determination triggering the right to appeal.

Citizens For Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — granting in part and denying in part plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction, concluding that plaintiff was likely to succeed on the merits of its claims for expedited processing of records about DOJ’s voter data requests; finding that CREW qualified as “primarily engaged in disseminating information” and that its requests involved matters of exceptional public and media interest affecting confidence in government integrity; declining, however, to order CREW’s requested production rate, reasoning that doing so could disrupt DOJ’s handling of other requests and risk mishandling sensitive material.

Feb. 18, 2026

Rhodes v. IRS (N.D. Ala.) -- dismissing the lawyer’s lawsuit against the IRS for lack of Article III standing, finding that he lacked a concrete personal injury because the FOIA request was submitted on behalf of his client, not in his own name.

Feb. 17, 2026

Lenz v. IRS (D.C. Cir.) (unpublished) -- affirming district court’s decision that plaintiff failed to demonstrate that IRS attorneys knowingly misrepresented the status of two boxes of responsive documents sought in a 2008 FOIA lawsuit involving the same parties; finding that plaintiff’s motion for relief under Rule 60(b)(3) was untimely filed and that the district court properly declined to set aside the judgment under its inherent authority due to lack of clear and convincing evidence of fraud.

Biggins v. USPS (D.N.J.) -- granting agency’s motion to dismiss pro se plaintiff’s amended Complain, which sought change-of-address information of a third party upon whom plaintiff wanted to serve legal process; finding that plaintiff failed to submit proper FOIA requests and had not exhausted administrative remedies.

Ezeah v. EOUSA (D.D.C.) -- denying plaintiff's motion for reconsideration and granting summary judgment to the government after the agency clarified that the only records requested by plaintiff—communications related to his prosecution between the federal prosecutor and his defense attorney, and between the prosecutor and an FBI agent—had been permanently deleted under the agency’s retention policy.

Feb. 12, 2026

Informed Consent Action Network v. Food & Drug Admin. (D.D.C.) — granting in part the agency’s motion for an Open America stay of proceedings; concluding that the agency adequately demonstrated “exceptional circumstances,” in large part due to “aggressive production rates” imposed by a “Texas court” that require the agency to disclose “up to 180,000 pages each month”; rejecting various arguments raised by the requester, which were unsuccessfully raised before other judges in the DDC in the recent past, including last week; noting, moreover, that the agency has “acted diligently” in processing the requests at issue, despite its limited resources and staffing.

Feb. 10, 2026

Foster v. Drug Enf’t Admin. (D.D.C.) — denying the government’s motion for summary judgment, rejecting its use of Exemptions 6, 7(C), and 7(E), and, after conducting in camera review, ordering disclosure of “security-camera footage from over fifteen years ago that depicts the parking lot of a pain clinic”; concluding, as an initial matter, that the video footage met the Exemption 7 threshold as it was “obtained and used by the FBI in connection with its criminal investigation into the illegal distribution of prescription drugs”; yet also concluding there was no privacy interest at stake because the footage was “of low resolution”—“[n]o faces are discernible . . . no license plates are visible, and no individual can reasonably be identified”; with regard to Exemption 7(E), concluding the “video was [not] captured by [the agency’s] surveillance devices,” and therefore could shed no light on how the FBI “conducts surveillance, selects targets, or allocates investigative resources,” and the government otherwise had failed to persuasively describe how disclosure would risk circumvention of the law.

Feb. 9, 2026

Zavala v. Immigration & Customs Enf’t (W.D. Pa.) — denying a requester’s motion for attorney’s fees; concluding the requester, who had sought copies of portions of his A-file and related records, was not “eligible” for fee recovery since he did not “substantially prevail”; explaining the “Court never ordered relief to Plaintiff,” who ultimately filed a notice of voluntary dismissal, and the requester’s alternative “catalyst theory” argument failed because he could not demonstrate “causation”; noting the government’s processing delays were “neither unexplained nor unusually long,” especially in light of a “uncontroverted backlog,” and were instead more likely the result of “administrative delays . . . as well as the necessity of inter-agency searches and responses”; noting further how the government has started processing “prior to the lawsuit being filed.”

Feb. 6, 2026

Finkelstein v. Nat’l Insts. of Health (D.D.C.) — granting the requester’s motion for attorney fees and costs and awarding the full amount requested, $36,973.65; concluding the requester was “eligible” for a fee award and “substantially prevailed” under the “catalyst theory” because the agency (1) “repeatedly refused to provide an estimated date of completion,” (2) “categorically denied [in its Answer] that ‘Plaintiff is entitled to . . . any relief whatsoever,’” (3) left unresolved “discrepancies in the [evidentiary] record as to how and when” it “conducted its search,” and (4) “amended and re-released material . . . initially withheld from disclosure” after the requester “challenged some . . . redactions”; concluding also that the requester was “entitled to fees” because the requester is an “investigative journalist” and sought records that would serve the public interest, did not otherwise have a private or “purely commercial” interest in disclosure, and the government did not have a reasonable basis for its withholdings; rejecting the agency’s challenge to the reasonableness of the requester’s sought-after fee amount.

Feb. 5, 2026

Informed Consent Action Network v. Food & Drug Admin. (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s Open America motion to “stay proceedings for eighteen months due to significant records demands imposed on Defendants by a district court in Texas”; rejecting the requester’s argument, “[a]t the outset,” that the FOIA denies courts the authority to authorize judicial stays; noting, with respect to the existence of “exception circumstances,” that the agencies remain “subject to increasing production rates . . . ranging from a total of 90,000 to 180,000 pages per month” in other litigation, and these orders have significantly impacted available resources for processing other requests; noting also the agencies’ efforts to “triage the substantial demands” of this other ongoing litigation; concluding the government has otherwise demonstrate “due diligence” in complying with the FOIA, whether considered in general or with respect to the specific request at issue.

Feb. 4, 2026

Novak v. Cent. Intelligence Agency (D.D.C.) — in a case concerning a requester’s access to records about her mother’s officially acknowledged service at the CIA, granting in part and denying in part the agency’s motion for summary judgment; concluding, with respect to Exemption 1, that records were properly exempt from automatic declassification, despite their age (which, in the case of two records, was “more than 50 years old”), because of ongoing sensitivity, as “plausibly” explained by the agency’s declarant in sufficient detail; accordingly rejecting the requester’s request for in camera review; opining also that an agency “is entitled to a presumption that it complied with the obligation to disclose reasonably segregable material”; holding further, with respect to Exemption 3, that the agency properly relied on the CIA Act of 1949 to withhold various categories of information; finally, concluding the agency failed to meet its burden to redact “personal information” about “third-party individuals, i.e., individuals not employed by the CIA”; noting, for example, how “the CIA has not made any real effort to determine whether the third parties involved are still alive,” or whether they have cognizable privacy interests “at stake”; granting the CIA another opportunity to reassess its Exemption 6 withholding and to submit additional affidavits with a renewed motion for summary judgment.

Judicial Watch v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C) — ruling that the FBI properly relied on Exemption 7(E) to redact the total amount it paid Twitter for legal-process requests in each calendar quarter from 2016 to 2023, reasoning that while the existence of the FBI’s requests is publicly known, the payment amounts would reveal how frequently the FBI employs this technique and which platforms it prioritizes. In reaching its conclusion, the court deferred to the FBI’s judgment about the risks of disclosure, and plaintiff conceded that releasing the information would cause foreseeable harm

Carzoglio v. Executive Office for U.S. Attys (D.D.C.) — holding that EOUSA properly relied on Exemption 7(C) to categorically withhold all records concerning the criminal prosecution of a former police chief whose department had investigated and arrested plaintiff in an earlier case; explaining that plaintiff’s interest in challenging his conviction was not a cognizable “public interest” under the statute, and that the prosecution of the police chief for tax evasion “had nothing to do with” plaintiff’s earlier investigation or conviction.

Feb. 3, 2026

Crisman v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion for summary judgment; holding, in relevant part, that the agencies’ searches for responsive records were reasonable and adequately supported, and that the requester’s inapt reliance on Glomar responses for other records did not amount to a meaningful challenge; rejecting also the requester’s argument that DOJ’s “policy of allowing an FBI official to classify a record after receiving a FOIA requestion violates the terms of Executive Order 12958,” given controlling precedent on sub-delegation in Mobley v. CIA, 806 F.3d 568 (D.C. Cir. 2015).

Jan. 30, 2026

Kalbers v. DOJ (9th Cir.) -- reversing district’s court’s decision and holding that Exemption 3, in conjunction with Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e), protected nearly all records provided by Volkswagen to DOJ pursuant to federal grand jury subpoena; rejecting the district court’s approach that focused on whether the documents themselves were inherently revealing and reasoning that disclosure would necessarily reveal matters occurring before the grand jury by exposing the scope and direction of its investigation into Volkswagen’s emissions fraud; remanding only for consideration of whether four unmarked documents must be disclosed.

Jan. 29, 2026

Advocates for Human Rights v. U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Servs. (D.D.C.) — in a case concerning access to “applications for T visas,” as well as “three categories of associated documents,” granting in part and denying in part the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment; holding, as an initial matter, that 8 U.S.C. § 1367(a)(2), which was enacted in 1997 and lacks any cross-reference to the FOIA, still qualifies as a withholding provision for purposes of Exemption 3, despite another subsection of Section 1367 having been amended in 2013 after the OPEN FOIA Act of 2009; holding further that the agency had “invoked Exemption 3 indiscriminately” by failing to recognize how Section “1367(a)(2)’s strict confidentiality does not extend to all T visa applications,” but instead specifically excludes from its scope “fully denied T visa applications”; remanding to the agency with instructions to conduct another search and identify “finally denied” visa applications and related records for possibly disclosure; concluding, at the same time, that the agency properly withheld certain “fully approved T visa applications and related records.”

Informed Consent Action Network v. Food & Drug Admin. (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion for an Open America stay; rejecting the requester’s argument that the FOIA does not provide courts with the authority to stay proceedings; concluding the agency adequately demonstrated the existence of “exceptional circumstances,” as well as “due diligence” in its efforts to process the request at issue; noting, with respect to “exceptional circumstances,” that the FDA was currently subject to judicial orders in the Northern District of Texas that require the production of “over nine million pages of records by October 1, 2026.”

Jan. 28, 2026

Am. Wild Horse Campaign v. Bureau of Land Mgmt. (D.D.C.) — upon review of a magistrate’s Report and Recommendations on the requester’s motion for attorney’s fees and costs, granting in part and denying in part the motion; holding, firstly, that the requester was “eligible” for fees on a catalyst theory because the agency changed its legal position “in response to the Court’s orders and Plaintiff’s efforts,” and its efforts to negotiate with the requester in “good faith” did not seriously suggest it would have provided any supplemental productions beyond what it originally disclosed to the requester; holding, further, that all four “entitlement” factors weighed in favor of a fee award; of note, rejecting the agency’s argument that its basis for nondisclosure had been “colorable or reasonable,” when its sole position in litigation had been that the request at issue was “too ambiguous to merit processing”; with respect to the fee amount, concluding it would be reasonable to allow recovery on (1) time spent preparing an opposition to the agency’s motion to dismiss that was ultimate dismissed as moot, (2) time spent preparing for a motion hearing, (3) “time spent reviewing records . . . not merely to satisfy the curiosity that prompted [the requester] to file its FOIA request in the first place, but to ensure that nothing further remained to litigate,” and (4) “time devoted to the unsuccessful negotiation over attorney’s fees”; likewise holding that the magistrate’s “proposed award of fees on fees is reasonable”; finally, awarding the requester a total of $58,741.78 in fees and costs

Jan. 27, 2026

Project for Privacy & Surveillance Accountability, Inc. v. Nat’l Sec. Agency (D.D.C.) — denying the government’s motion to reconsider a January 2024 summary judgment opinion based on a “purported intervening change in law,” namely, the D.C. Circuit’s July 2025 decision in Project for Privacy & Surveillance Accountability, Inc. v. Dep’t of Justice; holding, firstly, that the Circuit’s decision was not controlling due to important differences in the scope of the requests at issue, which had important implications for the government’s obligation to conduct a search; holding, moreover, that the Circuit’s decision did not constitute a significant change in the law because it construction of earlier precedent did not undermine the instant court’s legal conclusions about the availability of categorical Glomar responses.

Jan. 22, 2026

Checksfield v. IRS (2nd Cir.) (unpublished) -- affirming district court’s decision that the IRS properly relied on Exemption 3, in conjunction with 26 U.S.C. § 6103, to withhold in full third-party tax returns or return information; rejecting requester’s argument that any exceptions to non-disclosure applied.

Jan. 21, 2026

Am. Oversight v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — denying the government’s Rule 12(f) motion to strike twenty-two introductory paragraphs from the requester’s FOIA complaint, which the government argued comprised “entirely irrelevant alleged factual material and editorialized statements”; noting the government “concedes . . . such motions ‘are generally disfavored,’” and that the requester “contests” the supposed irrelevance of the content; concluding none of the paragraphs at issue are “scandalous or prejudicial” and “judicial efficiency is far better served by not required Plaintiff to amend.”

Jan. 20, 2026

Marker v. U.S. Dep’t of Educ. (N.D. Cal.) -- ruling that the department conducted an adequate search for records concerning plaintiff’s federal student loans; rejecting plaintiff’s challenges to the search methodology, concluding that alternative search terms and additional databases would not have produced unique borrower-specific records; further holding that the department was not required to produce records of payments allegedly made to prior commercial servicers because those records were no longer in the department’s possession or control.

Jan. 15, 2026

Leopold v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- on remand from the D.C. Circuit, holding that DOJ properly relied on Exemption 8 to withhold a Monitor Report assessing HSBC’s anti–money laundering and sanctions compliance and met the foreseeable harm requirement because disclosure of any portion of the report would threaten the effectiveness of bank supervision; reasoning that although redactions could mitigate harms such as criminal exploitation, competitive injury, and chilled employee candor, those risks alone did not justify withholding the entire document; further explaining that DOJ showed—through sworn declarations from foreign regulators—that release of even a redacted report would undermine settled expectations of confidentiality and foreseeably chill future cooperation with U.S. monitors and regulators.

Jan. 12, 2026

Landis v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons (D.D.C.) -- holding that Office of Personnel Management properly relied on Exemption 6 to withhold the names and duty stations of Bureau of Prisons employees nationwide for 2017 and 2018, reasoning that BOP employees have significant privacy and safety interests and that disclosure would not meaningfully shed light on BOP operations.

S. Envtl. Law Ctr. v. TVA (E.D. Tenn.) -- determining that: (1) Tennessee Valley Authority performed a reasonable search for agency’s communications with an energy company concerning a proposed gas pipeline, rejecting plaintiff’s challenges to o the search scope, methods, and alleged missing records; (2) TVA did not adequately justify its withholdings of confidential commercial information under Exemption 4 because its categorical explanations were overly broad and did not clearly link specific documents to specific exemption rationales; and (3) TVA was entitled to summary judgment with respect to its redaction of personal contact information under Exemption 6, which plaintiff did not oppose.

Mannon v. U.S. Dep't of Veteran Affairs (E.D. Mich.) -- ruling that plaintiff failed to state a valid FOIA claim because his complaint did not clearly identify what his FOIA request was seeking, referenced conflicting request numbers, and did not specify which records were allegedly improperly withheld; further ruling that amendment would be futile because plaintiff’s proposed new claim was based on alleged destruction of evidence, which does not provide a standalone legal claim.

Jan. 9, 2026

Am. First Legal Found. v. U.S. Gov’t Accountability Office (D.D.C.) — granting the government’s motion to dismiss, and concluding that the U.S. Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) is not subject to FOIA” because it is a legislative-branch agency; explaining that the APA’s exclusion of “the Congress,” which is incorporated into the FOIA’s definition of “agency” at sec. 552(f), is best read as the “entire legislative branch,” including its agencies; rejecting the requester’s arguments that GAO is, in fact, an “establishment in the executive branch” or an “independent regulatory agency.”

Williams & Connolly LLP v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec. (D.D.C.) — issuing an amended version of the Court’s Oct. 31, 2025 opinion, which concluded that ICE conducted an adequate search for records related to individuals involved in a sanctions evasion case in the Southern District of New York, and that CBP and USCIS properly withheld records pursuant to FOIA Exemptions 6 and 7(C) and met the statute’s foreseeable harm and segregability requirements; explaining in an accompanying order that the amendment was necessary to clarify how resolution of the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment was not “final” and “appealable” because plaintiffs claims against the Department of the Treasury and Department of State “have not yet been adjudicated.”

Kitlinski v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — holding that DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility failed to conduct an adequate search because it did not attempt to identify “journaled emails,” or other archived messages that might have been deleted by the relevant custodian, through its Microsoft M365 document system.

Jan. 6, 2026

Legal Eagle, LLC v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- ruling that plaintiff failed to exhaust its administrative remedies because it neither appealed OIP’s determination that its FOIA request was not reasonably described nor resubmitted a narrowed request; rejecting plaintiff’s argument that no administrative appeal was required, explaining that OIP affirmatively offered both an appeal and an opportunity to reformulate the request, which plaintiff declined; further, dismissing plaintiff’s expedited-processing claim as moot, since OIP had already issued a final response to the FOIA request and there was nothing left to expedite.