Tobias v. Dep’t of the Interior (D.D.C.) — granting plaintiff's fee petition where agency produced no documents on any of nine requests prior to suit; finding eligibility under catalyst theory based on sudden post-filing acceleration after months of inaction and missed self-imposed deadlines; holding all four entitlement factors favored plaintiff because requests served public interest, plaintiff had non-commercial journalistic motivations, and agency lacked colorable basis for delay; awarding full lodestar with only narrow reductions for clerical tasks and certain post-resolution billing; permitting recovery for unsuccessful fee settlement negotiations given government's “ill-advised” litigation posture; and allowing full fees-on-fees recovery, including over $21,000 for reply briefing alone, where the inflated fees-on-fees costs were attributable to defendants' 45-page opposition raising mostly meritless arguments that caused the fee dispute “to spiral into a second major litigation.”
Louise Trauma Ctr. LLC v. Dep’t of Justice (D.D.C.) — denying fee petition in its entirety based on counsel's troubling track record of billing deficiencies across multiple recent cases in same district; an apparently inflated fee request where counsel valued fees at $50,000 in settlement discussions but sought more than twice that amount less than two weeks later; and pervasive deficiencies in the billing records themselves, including entries shifted to different dates, time increased on amended records, and a billing entry described only as "reasonable number of hours," leaving the court with "little confidence as to the reliability of counsel's billing records or the overall reasonableness of counsel's claimed fees."
Am. Soc’y for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals v. Dep’t of Agric. (D.D.C.) — granting in part and denying in part the government’s motion to dismiss in a case “asserting 42 individual” FOIA claims about the processing separate and discreet requests, as well as “one policy or practice claim”; concluding the requester “plausibly alleged a policy or practice claim” as to “two alleged deficiencies,” namely, the agency’s “failure to timely respond to Plaintiff’s appeals” and “to make prompt determinations and disclosures of responsive records”; agreeing with the government that the requester’s claim fails under Rule 12(b)(6) insofar as it alleges the agency “regularly and repeatedly” fails to provide estimated dates of completion or provide appeal rights in its determination letters; rejecting the government’s proposal to dismiss or sever the first 42 counts, as “they form the basis of the policy or practice claim.”
Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. Ctrs. for Disease Control & Prevention (D.D.C.) — denying government’s motion to dismiss FOIA policy-or-practice claim arising from closure of CDC's FOIA office and rerouting of all requests to a different HHS division under DOGE workforce reduction order; finding plaintiff stated a claim based on plausible allegations of widespread processing delays, failure to maintain reading-room disclosures, and stonewalling of requesters across multiple organizations; denying without prejudice both parties' cross-motions for summary judgment on the FOIA claim because the record was mixed, stale, and incomplete, and agency’s conduct had not yet been shown to be "so delinquent or recalcitrant" as to warrant injunctive relief beyond an ordinary production order; expressing skepticism of government’s exceptional-circumstances defense given that the delays were self-inflicted, which "calls to mind the man sentenced to death for killing his parents, who pleads for mercy on the ground that he is an orphan"; and dismissing APA claim because FOIA provided an adequate alternative remedy.
White v. Dep’t of Agric. (E.D. Okla.) — following a bench trial, entering judgment for the agency; holding that the agency conducted an adequate search for records, even though “no search terms were utilized to identify the responsive documents,” give the “nature of Plaintiff’s request, the USDA’s record-keeping practices, and the type of information stored on the [Multi-Family Information System] and [Automatic Multi-Family Accounting System]” databases; concluding, further, that the requester was not entitled to attorney’s fees.
Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.