Goldwater Inst. v. HHS (9th Cir.) (unpublished) -- vacating and remanding district court’s opinion and finding that FDA improperly relied on agency regulations to categorically withhold entire contents of Investigational New Drug file instead of evaluating whether specific records in file fell within Exemption 4.
Trent v. DHS (D.D.C.) -- deciding that USPS tracking notice was insufficient to establish that DHS received plaintiff’s administrative appeal letter, which was sent to address listed in DHS’s response letter instead of address listed in DHS regulations.
Reclaim Records v. Dep't of Veterans Affairs (S.D.N.Y.) -- finding that: (1) agency improperly relied on Exemption 6 to withhold two databases concerning deceased beneficiaries, rejecting agency’s argument that categorical withholding was warranted because it would be too burdensome to segregate commingled data of living individuals; further noting that one database had been released nine years earlier and remained in public domain; and (2) additional briefing was required on data field for “cause of death.”
ACLU v. ICE (D. Mass.) -- ruling that: (1) agency performed inadequate search for records concerning its participation in National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA) conference in 2019, and granting plaintiff limited discovery concerning search; (2) draft conference agenda created and shared by NSA did not meet threshold requirement of Exemption 5; (3) draft talking points and related emails did not not fall within deliberative process privilege as interpreted by First Circuit.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.