1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

________________________________ ) WAYNE R. WERTH , ) ) Plaintiff, ) )
v. ) Civil Action No. 18

- 1171 (EGS) ) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE et al ., ) ) ) Defendant s
. )

_______________________________ _ )

MEMORANDUM OPINION
In June 2018, p laintiff, a federal prisoner appearing pro se , filed this action to compel the United States Marshals Service to respond to his Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request
for document ation concerning materials he allegedly lost during an airlift. In light of the complaint, the Marshals Service cond ucted a search, released one of eighty

- nine potentially responsive records, and moved for summary judgment. Initially, th e Court denied summary judgment because the record raised questions about the declarant’s competency to testify about
the matters at h and. See ECF No. 21, Mem. Op. and Order at 4

- 5 ( finding “ n othing ” to suggest
that Defendant’s declarant “ coordinated the search, conducted the search, or reviewed the 89 potentially responsive pages and determined one to be responsive ”)

. Pending before t he Court is Defendants’ Renewed Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 24

. Plaintiff “waives his right2 to respond” to the motion. Resp

. to Order, ECF No. 26. 1 For the following reasons, defendants’
motion will be granted. The background and legal framework are set forth in the court’s initial ruling and bear no repeating here. That said, the Court must “determine for itself whether the record and any undisputed material facts justify granting summary judgment.” Winston & Strawn, LLP v.

McLean , 843 F.3d 503, 505 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)).
Defendant s ha ve supplemented the record with the Declaration o f Associate General
Counsel Charlotte Luckstone (“Luckstone Decl.”) , w ho serves as th e FOIA/PA Officer for the
Marshals Service. Luckstone Decl. ¶ 1 , ECF No. 22

- 1. By his waiver, p laintiff admi ts that the
Service (1) conducted a reasonably adequate search for responsive records and (2) released “ the sole page relating to Plaintiff ’ s property at the airlift

— a Field Report pertaining to a property inquiry

. ” Stmt. of Undisputed Material Facts (“SOMF”) ¶ 21 ; see Luckstone Decl. ¶¶ 8

- 1 7 ( describing search and retrieval methods )

. In addition , the Service properly invoked FOIA

E xemption 6 to redact the identifying information of two law enforcement personnel

. 2 SOMF ¶
23 ; see 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6) (exempting “personnel” files from disclosure); Nat'l Ass'n of Retired Fed. Employees v. Horner , 879 F.2d 873, 875 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (because FOIA
disclosure s are to “the whole world ,” the “ privacy interest of an individual in avoiding the unlimited disclosure of his or her name and address is significant ”). Therefore, the Court may

1 Plaintiff’s response is to the order duly advising him about the consequences of failing to respond to defendant’s dispositive motion

. See Order, ECF No. 25

.

2 T he Court need not address defendants’ withholding of the same identifying information under FOIA Exemption (7)(C) but finds it properly justified

. See Defs.’ Mem. at P. & A at 7

- 11, ECF No. 24

- 2.3 appropriately grant s ummary judgment to the de fendants. A separate order accompanies this Memorandum Opinion.

S IGNED: EMMET G. S ULLIVAN UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE Date: December 3 , 2020