FOIA Advisor

Court opinions issued Aug. 28, 2025

Court Opinions (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

Schubert v. BOP (D.D.C.) -- ruling that pro se inmate failed to exhaust his administrative remedies for one request concerning an alleged BOP employee, and BOP properly refused to confirm or deny the existence of personnel records about another alleged employee under Exemption 6.

MSW Media, Inc. v. U.S. DOGE Serv. (D.D.C.) -- granting plaintiffs’ motion to preserve records in FOIA action because: (1) plaintiffs raised serious legal questions about whether Elon Musk was acting as a de facto USDS employee; (2) there was a risk of irreparable harm due to potential deletion of records, especially messages sent via Signal; (3) the burden on USDS to preserve records was minimal; and (4) preserving the records served the public interest in government transparency.

Informed Consent Action Network v. FDA (D.D.C.) -- granting an initial six-month stay instead of the requested 18 months after finding the agency showed exceptional circumstances due to court-ordered production of millions of COVID-19 vaccine records and demonstrated due diligence in processing FOIA requests; limiting the stay to avoid rendering disclosures stale or irrelevant.

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