United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted November 9, 2016*

Decided November 10, 2016 

Before 

DIANE P. WOOD, Chief Judge 

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge 

DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge

No. 16-1876 

TIMOTHY L. HOELLER, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION,

 Defendant-Appellee.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Eastern District of 

Wisconsin. 

No. 15-C-1553 

C.N. Clevert, Jr., 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

Timothy Hoeller seeks documents from the Social Security Administration under 

the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552, but the district court dismissed 

this suit because Hoeller failed to exhaust his administrative remedies before suing. 

Hoeller filed a post-judgment motion to reconsider, arguing that after he filed suit he 

had exhausted, but the district court denied that motion. Hoeller timely appealed only 

 

*

 We have unanimously agreed to decide the case without oral argument because 

the briefs and record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral 

argument would not significantly aid the court. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 
No. 16-1876 Page 2 

the denial of his post-judgment motion, and so we limited his appeal to that decision. 

Because the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying that motion, we affirm. 

Hoeller mailed a request to the Social Security Administration on December 29, 

2015, seeking documents related to an order to garnish his disability benefits to pay his 

child-support obligations. Rather than wait for a response, Hoeller filed this suit for 

those documents the same day. The district court dismissed the suit two days later, 

concluding that Hoeller had not exhausted his administrative remedies. It reasoned that 

an agency has 20 days to respond after receiving a FOIA request and the 

Administration likely had not even received Hoeller’s request, much less had time to 

respond, when Hoeller filed this suit. 

More than 28 days after judgment, Hoeller moved for reconsideration. He 

argued that he had yet to receive a reply from the Administration to his FOIA request, 

and now that more than 20 days had elapsed since he mailed it, he had exhausted. The 

district court denied Hoeller’s motion because, despite the absence of a reply, the fact 

remained that Hoeller had failed to exhaust at the time that he had filed suit. 

On appeal Hoeller repeats that he has exhausted his remedies because, by the 

time he filed his motion to reopen the judgment, the Administration’s time to respond 

had elapsed. A request to reopen made more than 28 days after judgment, like 

Hoeller’s, requires a showing of exceptional circumstances. FED. R. CIV. P. 60; Gonzalez v. 

Crosby, 545 U.S. 524, 535 (2005); Banks v. Chi. Bd. of Educ., 750 F.3d 663, 668 (7th Cir. 

2014). The district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that Hoeller has not 

made that demanding showing. See Cincinnati Life Ins. Co. v. Beyrer, 722 F.3d 939, 953 

(7th Cir. 2013). 

Exhaustion of administrative remedies is a prerequisite to filing a FOIA suit; 

exhaustion cannot be satisfied during an already-filed suit. See Scherer v. Balkema, 

840 F.2d 437, 443 (7th Cir. 1988) (affirming dismissal for failure to state a claim where 

appellant failed to exhaust remedies under FOIA before filing suit). As courts have 

explained in analogous contexts, exhaustion must be completed before initiating suit in 

order to realize the goal of allowing administrative remedies to relieve the burden of 

litigation on the courts. See Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 524 (2002) (requiring prisoners 

to exhaust administrative remedies, as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 

before filing suit); McNeil v. United States, 508 U.S. 106, 111–13 (1993) (holding that the 

Federal Tort Claims Act requires full administrative exhaustion before filing suit, not 

before substantial progress was made in the suit). 
No. 16-1876 Page 3 

Hoeller did not exhaust before he sued, and so the district court properly refused 

to reopen his case. 

AFFIRMED.