UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

HENRY MESEKE IMMANUEL,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY OF THE

UNITED STATES; TREASURY OF THE

No. 95-1953

UNITED STATES,

Defendants-Appellees,

v.

INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE,

Party in Interest.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore.

John R. Hargrove, Senior District Judge.

(CA-94-884-HAR)

Argued: March 5, 1996

Decided: April 5, 1996

Before ERVIN and NIEMEYER, Circuit Judges, and BUTZNER,

Senior Circuit Judge.

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Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

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COUNSEL

ARGUED: Jonathan Steven Resnick, Baltimore, Maryland, for

Appellant. Murray S. Horwitz, Tax Division, UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellees. ON

BRIEF: Loretta C. Argrett, Assistant Attorney General, Gary R.

Allen, Jonathan S. Cohen, Lynne Ann Battaglia, United States Attorney, Tax Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellees.

_________________________________________________________________

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See

Local Rule 36(c).

_________________________________________________________________

OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Henry Immanuel filed this action to compel the Department of the

Treasury to disclose records pursuant to the Freedom of Information

Act (FOIA). On September 22, 1993, Immanuel filed a FOIA request

with the Department of the Treasury for:

a listing of those funds currently held by the United States

Treasury, in escrow or otherwise, which are the subject

property of individuals who are legatees, who have not

claimed tax refunds due, who have overpaid the U.S. Treasury, who have not claimed monies owed for any reason

whatsoever including but not limited to those funds which

will escheat to the U.S. Treasury if they remain unclaimed.

Because the Treasury Department was unable to identify any list

responsive to Immanuel's request other than a list of unclaimed federal income tax refunds maintained by the Internal Revenue Service

(IRS), it referred Immanuel's request to the IRS. The IRS informed

Immanuel that it does prepare a "Federal Undelivered Refund List"

for each of its district offices, but that the lists are maintained at the

district offices. The IRS further advised Immanuel that if he wished

to obtain a copy of the Federal Undelivered Refund List for his area,

he would have to contact his IRS district office.

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Treating the IRS' response as a denial of his FOIA request, Immanuel appealed to the Department of the Treasury and, after the statutory

period for the Department to respond had expired, filed this action in

the district court. Although Immanuel never requested any documents

from his IRS district office, the defendants provided Immanuel with

the Federal Undelivered Refund List for Maryland and Washington,

D. C., in response to his lawsuit. The defendants then filed a motion

to dismiss Immanuel's complaint (1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because Immanuel had not directed his request to the appropriate agency and, therefore, had failed to exhaust his administrative

remedies and (2) as moot because Immanuel had been provided the

information he requested. Immanuel responded that he had exhausted

his administrative remedies and that the Federal Undelivered Refund

List did not satisfy his FOIA request. Without specifying any other

documents that he wanted, Immanuel also requested the opportunity

to conduct discovery to determine if the defendants were holding any

assets or funds other than tax refunds.

In considering the defendants' motion to dismiss, the district court

observed that the Department of the Treasury had"reasonably construed" Immanuel's request as one for a list of undelivered tax refunds

and that Immanuel had been given that list. The court further noted

that "[u]nder FOIA, the Department of Treasury only has to make

records available when a request `reasonably describes such

records,'" and that a court can only compel an agency to produce

records that have been "wrongfully" withheld. See 5 U.S.C.

§ 552(a)(3), (a)(4)(B). The court refused to permit Immanuel "to conduct a fishing expedition into all the possible funds held by the

Department of Treasury which may fall within the terms of his broad

FOIA request," especially at the government's expense.

Nevertheless, the district court provided Immanuel an opportunity

to clarify his position by describing the records he sought more precisely and by demonstrating that his FOIA request had complied with

the applicable agency regulations. It directed Immanuel to "show

cause" within 14 days "why his complaint should not be dismissed in

its entirety." When Immanuel failed to respond to the district court's

show cause order, the court dismissed the action.

On appeal, Immanuel still has not described, even generally, the

documents he seeks. At oral argument, his counsel maintained that

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Immanuel was not interested in the list of unclaimed tax refunds, but

admitted that it was "impossible to articulate" what documents

Immanuel wanted.

We agree with the district court that Immanuel's request was not

sufficiently specific to comply with FOIA, see Mason v. Callaway,

554 F.2d 129, 131 (4th Cir.) (per curiam), cert . denied, 434 U.S. 877

(1977), and that to the extent his request could be interpreted, the

responses of the Department of the Treasury and the IRS were reasonable. Moreover, Immanuel cannot be heard to complain that the district court's dismissal order was improper when he did not respond to

its show cause order and failed to describe the information he sought

in even the most general terms.

AFFIRMED

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