they please the court edina rosenbaum on behalf of plaintiff appellant margaret quokka margaret quokka is a law professor who scholarly research focuses on government transparency and federal agencies administration of the freedom of information withheld on cross motions for summary judgment the district court rejected all of the i r s is arguments for its blanket withholding of these records saying that the agency's reasoning suffered from logical problems the court required the agency to release the records subject only to limited redactions that the agency had to specifically justify and the i r s subsequently released the vast majority of the records which was thousands of names and organizational affiliations nonetheless when professor quokka moved for an award of attorney's fees the district court denied her motion concluding that although she was eligible for fees she was not entitled to fees under the four dollars factor a test that this court uses to determine entitlement so concluding that the district court abused its discretion in two ways st it abused its discretion in weighing against professor quokka the nd and rd entailment factors which look at the requesters commercial interest in the records and the nature of the plaintiff's interest in the records and nd it abused its discretion in weighing against her the th intelligent factor which looks at the reasonableness of the agency's initial withholding on the nd and rd factors  factor weighs in her favor and then it says but to introduce the other two factors i think the only way to read the sentence is that it has weighed both the nd and rd factors against her and that quoted language from cotton i got she called  iris is defense was not unreasonable so given that and given what we've called our double dose of difference here haven't we how do we conclude that she abused her discretion in that reaching a conclusion i think the court abused its discretion by looking at the wrong factors in particular in saying that the i r s had a reasonable basis ex ante in withholding the records the court stated that its primary motivation was to ensure that it was not disclosing controversial tax return information but the question for the th entitlement factor isn't about the agency's subjective motivation whether it had good faith to withhold the records it's about whether it had a reasonable basis in the law for withholding the records and when the court addressed the legal basis for withholding the records in its summary  there had been some legitimate cause for concern but that looking at the redactions also involves looking is examining the wrong factor because the question isn't whether there was a reasonable basis for withholding the the agency ultimately withheld and professor quokka did not object to those redactions she did not she did not challenge those reductions when the agency made them the question is whether the agency had a good faith basis a reasonable basis in law to withhold all of the records that it withheld at the beginning including all of the ones that it eventually released in the case so we think that in determining that she had a that the agency had a reasonable basis as an ex ante that the court was examining the wrong considerations and not looking at whether the agency had a reasonable basis in law for withholding all of the records that it originally withheld and what it is they ex ante the ex ante point in time that we're talking about is the initial decision for blanket withholding yes so the question is whether it had a reasonable basis to withhold that time to do a blanket with old and to do a blanket withholding at the beginning of the case and not to not determine whether it could so your gate portions out right whether had a reasonable basis for not complying with its obligations to segregate out the non exam withholding on those two grounds was reasonable whether there is a reasonable basis for the blanket withholding over all those around them and then they can consider the concern was we my it to school it might be something in here that will get some things in here that will disclose stuff covered by sixty one to three and we're not going to look any further because new record administrative burden well the agency overall did not engage in any segregation it was not it was not  to burn a new document arguments yes i would like to briefly touch on the nd and rd entitlement factors as well the court abused its discretion with regards to those factors by failing to apply this court's decision in davy and ignoring professor quokka scholarly interest in their records and gave me this court made clear that scholars were precisely the type of  here professor quote his interest was clearly scholarly thought that information to use in her forthcoming book and other scholarly work her in fact were not purely commercial or frivolous and those two factors should have weighed in her favor she is the parodic matic scholar seeking information for public information purposes there's there's a rd possibility on factors two and three they could could be resolved in a in the requesters favor or they could be resolved in the government's favor or they just might not cut one way or the other and you say davy which is a very good case for you no doubt about it but post davey we have mckinley which says that when you have a requester with both motives the commercial am a scholarly it's not an abuse of discretion to conclude that that factor falls in the middle category doesn't cut one way or the other right so why shouldn't  actually against professor quokka not an actor one issue resolved in your favor and then there's and then there's the but there's the but and let me think the but means she's not resolving factors two and three in your favor where do you get that she's resolved she's counting them against you which would be a j v error as opposed to just saying i'm not counting them one way or the other which would be fine under mccune i think that the but does indicate that it's saying something opposing and then the th factor is introduced moreover so i think that the structure of the decision makes clear that she's weighing the was someone in the business for himself as a regular tory policy expert not an academic with no real history of academic publications  interests into account at all it only talks about her commercial interests repertory interest her professional interest there's no recognition that she was seeking with information for public informational purposes which is the way in which scholars seek information so it ignored her scholarly interests over all and on there is no basis here for finding that for commercial interest in the only possible thing that the court could have been referring to when talking about her commercial interest is the fact that she earns her living as a scholar and is publishing a book an academic book about florida but in davey this court recognize recognize that make much money i would not expect that book to client under your series does not really make any difference i i don't think it makes a difference how much money the book will make i think at the extremes there could be if  every freshman the united states i don't think it made a difference i think if the purpose of the book is scholarly it's being written for an academic purpose to be increasing the public knowledge then the amount of money that the professor is making doesn't make a difference that's just how  exercised its broad discretion in denying professor quotas request for attorney's fees because st and foremost the i r s had a reasonable or at least a clerical basis in law for withholding the documents principally to ensur most important we say it's most important here we think because the because we think that the united yes yes we were not saying that that the th factors elevated above the why is it the most oh i'm sorry you're breaking so you know what you think it's just most important in this case correct and correct why is that because we think that that factor standing alone would be sufficient to affirm in this case for example under mor to support affirming the court's denial of all of the award of fees and we think this is a similar situation that even if you know the st three factors weighed in professor quokka favor that the court the district court's finding that  the service was motivated to protect confidential richard from that that's you know it's an issue here and of course that's true i mean no one would disagree with that but the question we have to ask is why was it reasonable to think that this particular foyer request this one boy would result in the release of of which are information that the question and i didn't see anywhere in your brief where you responded to that well question you're right it is significant that this is the same district judge who created a richer for the place but we still have to ask whether it was an abuse of discretion in my question to you is that i didn't see in your brief anywhere where you explained that why it was all reasonable to think that in this particular foyer request would result in the release of return information well if that's what i that was posed by the foyer request was a novel legal question about which didn't there wasn't any specific guidance there wasn't any precedent there wasn't any you know specific exclusion of sixty one and three that would answer the question of whether rd party  is not sixty one all three you know it wouldn't be a public phone or log if it were but the vast majority of forty requests that come to the i r s are for are asking for returning from asia for very common sense reasons because people generally don't ask the iris for documents that don't exist are when you say the vast majority of the road a collaboration said you get many requests for that and you get quote many requests for not in return information are you disagreeing that with that with that declaration when you say the vast majority say tax information well i don't think that well i don't think that that's i don't think it's in crack to say that that there are many requests that are for non return information but those can be started to leverage already when there's many for non return information and this one included a request for non return information as well as you are concerned about return well it asked for the names of organizational affiliations didn't necessarily preclud boy requests that were for known tax information well correct correct but not a problem the problem for the i r s is that looking at that when professor quote this request comes in suddenly she wants to associate names with everything on the foyle blog and the automated system of course can produce a list of names of their of the requesters and there were organizational affiliations but the i r s can't release that list without risking violating the automated system has no way of distinguishing between what's the st party request what's the rd party request what the facts was a request for tax information your tax return information with a request for non return information and and so we think that you know given the broad definitions in sixty one all three iras have to make a judgment call about the risk of sixty one of three violations and and this was a very novel and complex request and so the for non return information and this is just for a year two thousand and fifteen so there's no reason to think two thousand and fifteen would have been different than other years it would have included many lawyer requests for tax return information and many were not return lot in there that wasn't protected by sixty with one of you thought there might be some that if things got pieced together are you worried i guess that were there were some and that's conscientious worry that there were a lot that there were that this was a joint that's all going to be  we also argue to force the unreasonable burden right in the district because i only rejected that it's not a reasonable argument well it did that based in part on public citizen in which case not asking what cases a side of the district just found no merit to that argument at all well correct but i didn't find that that was you know the district court here didn't find that it was that would have been a reasonable basis for argument just that the iris was wrong and you know there are distinctions between public citizen and our case here specifically that the reason that's the case about you had a concern that there might be something in there i didn't say in your day and a declaration that said you were concerned that lots and lots would be in there but you were concerned that there would be some in there and sixty one dollars of the three is correct martin statute and then as i read the process what happened is then what the government said it and we're not go there or that we think there's a lot there's no declared i saw this and we think there's lots and they're protected by sixty three i didn't say that quantification if i'm running this please tell me it's just that it could be one could be two hundred we have no idea correct we know there's a chunk and there but don't really don't release tax return information there's there are some that may not yes you know many well not include tax return information according to mr rose words but we're not looking at so isn't that what we're deciding whether just court was correct on the side that position was colorable under foil well i think the colorable bar is a fairly low bar and  and it turns out it doesn't correct it turns out it didn't but the reasonableness factor is determined you know earlier in that process at the time the irises making the decision and of light of the fact that is why mr rowe described why it would take a take a good deal of time to do it and kareena smith i think in particular in her declaration laid out why that was going to be the case because this is because the great i'm not saying there is no obvious that it turned out it didn't take that much time but there wasn't anything we have to we have to assess that at the time the government made its decision to do a blanket withholding correct credit and that i guess and the rationale given was one that the district court flatly rejected just so that's not how fire works and that is not how foil works you have the documents and you have to check them well it says that the volume of the documents was not enough to know but it also said you aren't raising the burden goes to search not organizing the documents when you  cited i think it's solar sources and american federation of government employees which will stand for the proposition that you know where the search is you know the unreasonable burden question goes to search and review and i think under similar sources that case said that where that where this is going to be significantly wieldy as it was with our analytical reject about us that we can't miss st of all the cases you cited involved a search and that your sense of unwieldy was off base for your purposes i mean it takes a lot person a lot more hours under fire you weren't you weren't in the neighborhood well  didn't pass on the number of hours you passed on the volume and it also again the case that it was relying on public citizen went to the lack of sufficiency as an explanation in the a s you have any case for the district court or one now that says the amount of documents and hours all that was at it you hear something in that range at issue here post search primarily it was looking to exemption six and so we didn't think that needed that much addressing because the district court only needs one basis to find a reasonable basis and but we as we said in our brief we think under simple six you know the rationale just in to be the same because the six you have to show that there would be a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy and your affidavits again at the relevant time here and both like an exemption said maybe may may and may which is not the standard for exemptions like that might work under seven seas privacy protection but not exemption six which requires would correct so then it's not the same the i don't know i can just dollars says exemption six requires a finding that there would be a privacy intrusion not that there may or might be a private i guess i'm perhaps confused by your question i mean the district court found against us on that and we didn't appeal so i'm talking about again on the on your the reasonableness of your legal position well i don't think that we needed to particularly defend on those grounds i mean the district court found that there was reasonable is under sixty one of the three times that you said your brief had raised it again well well we're just well correct if a section where we address that very briefly in our brief followed by our addressing the unreasonable burden standard we said that the district court you know has sufficient gro minutes sorry for that delay because all of the four factors here weigh in favor of professor quokka we think this court should hold that she is both eligible for and entitled to fees  the district court to award for the fees that she requested and unless there are any further questions thank you any further questions ok well thank you very much because he admitted