Source: http://foiaproject.org/case_detail/?title=on&style=foia&case_id=18342
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 14:18:57+00:00

Document:
FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Beryl Howell has concluded that Greg Muttitt can pursue a pattern and practice challenge against the State Department for that agency's failure to provide him with an estimated date of completion for several different requests. While the practicality of complying with 5 U.S.C. 552(a)(7)(B), a provision from the OPEN Government Act which requires agencies to "establish a telephone line or Internet service that provides. . .an estimated date on which the agency will complete action on the request," has been discussed in the FOIA community, this is the first time the issue has resulted in a district court decision. Howell pointed out that Muttitt allegations were supported by "specific allegations of fact�"the agency's failure to provide him with time estimates for multiple requests on multiple occasions. The plaintiff admits that he 'is aware of no specific regulations, guidelines, or policy statements that authorize' the practice of not providing time estimates, but argues sensibly that '[v]ery rarely do requesters even know of an agency's activities behind the scenes of a request' prior to litigation. Moreover, a formal policy or regulation is not required to sustain a claim for relief enjoining a pattern or practice of violating FOIA." Muttitt alleged that State and the Department of Treasury had violated both FOIA and the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to provide an estimated date of completion. In response, both agencies argued that neither the FOIA nor the APA provided a legal remedy and that what Muttitt was really interested in accomplishing was to get a response to his requests. Muttitt acknowledged that "it is well recognized that the APA does not provide additional remedies where adequate remedies are already provided by another statute." However, he argued that "his claims regarding the agencies' failure to provide time estimates for processing of his FOIA requests are entitled to review under the APA because the FOIA does not provide adequate relief." State and Treasury argued that disclosure of the records was ultimately the best statutory remedy. But Howell indicated that she disagreed that "disclosure of the requested records alone would provide an adequate remedy where an agency has a policy of routinely ignoring the requirement to provide time estimates as required by 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(7)(B). As the plaintiff points out, under the defendants' view, 'agencies would be free to blithely ignore the statutory requirement that they provide estimated dates of completion, secure in the belief that no requester would ever be able to make them do it; the worst a requester could do is force them to process the request more quickly by filing suit,' which is exactly what the request can do anyway. In effect, defendants' argument would render 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(7)(B) optional and judicially unenforceable. The court concludes that an adequate remedy must include the possibility of equitable relief directing a habitually non-compliant agency to comply with § 552(a)(7)(B)." She then pointed out: "Such equitable relief is available under FOIA, however." She cited Payne Enterprises v. United States, 837 F.2d 486 (D.C. Cir. 1988), and explained that "Payne held that the release of requested information under FOIA did not moot 'a claim that an agency policy or practice will impair the party's lawful access to information in the future.' Courts have interpreted Payne as authorizing declaratory or injunctive relief under FOIA even when a plaintiff's specific claim regarding a FOIA request is moot because the requested documents have been released." Applying Payne, Howell noted that "while there are factual differences between this case and Payne, the Court finds that FOIA itself could provide the plaintiff with an equitable remedy, as described in Payne�"assuming, of course, that the plaintiff has stated a claim for relief based on an impermissible agency pattern or practice of violating FOIA. . .[S]ince FOIA, as interpreted by Payne, provides the plaintiff with an opportunity for the declaratory and injunctive relief he is seeking, relief under the APA is not available." She added that "the Court finds that APA relief is foreclosed here because the Court concludes that in this case�"where a plaintiff challenges an alleged pattern and practice of violating procedural requirements of FOIA in connection with the processing of the plaintiff's FOIA requests�"the Court has the power under FOIA and Payne to provide the requested declaratory and injunctive remedies." Howell then allowed Muttitt to pursue his challenge against State, but not Treasury. She pointed out that "the plaintiff has alleged that on two separate dates he requested estimated completion dates from State for five separate FOIA requests. . .This amounts to ten requests for estimated completion dates that did not receive an adequate response. Contrary to the defendants' assertions, these factually specific allegations of multiple FOIA violations are sufficiently detailed to state a pattern or practice claim." By contrast, Howell observed that "unlike the multiple failures to provide time estimates alleged against State, the plaintiff alleges that Treasury failed to provide him with an estimated completion date only one time in relation to a single FOIA request. The Court concludes that an allegation of a single FOIA violation is insufficient as a matter of law to state a claim for relief based on a policy, pattern, or practice of violating FOIA."
FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Beryl Howell has ruled that journalist Greg Muttitt's expedited processing claims are now moot and that the State Department conducted an adequate search for records concerning the development of Iraq's energy policy and national hydrocarbon law. She also found the agency had properly withheld records under Exemption 1 (national security), but had not yet shown that other records could be withheld under Exemption 5 (deliberative process privilege). Muttitt submitted five requests for records to State for cable traffic to and from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. He also asked for any emails relating to the work of Meghan O'Sullivan, who Muttitt identified as having served as a presidential envoy to Iraq between June-October 2007. The agency denied Muttitt's requests for a fee waiter and expedited processing for all five requests. Ultimately, the State Department located 94 documents responsive to the five requests. Muttitt challenged the agency's fee waiver and expedited processing decisions, the adequacy of its search, and its exemption claims. Although Muttitt admitted that his challenge to the specific fee waivers was moot, he argued that his complaint implied that the agency had a pattern and practice of denying fee waivers and that in his filings he had urged the court go beyond the parameters of the disputed requests and consider the agency's practices. He also argued that, because FOIA's provision concerning expedited processing stated that a district court did not have jurisdiction to review a denial of expedited processing after the agency had provided a complete response to the request, the agency's response could not yet be considered "complete" because the adequacy of its search was being contested. While giving Muttitt high marks for creativity, Howell found his challenge by implication totally unpersuasive. She pointed out that "permitting the plaintiff to raise a policy-or-practice claim for the first time at summary judgment based solely on vague language in his Prayer for Relief would run contrary to Rule 8's purpose because the language cited by the plaintiff in his First Amended Complaint, by itself, does not put the defendant on notice of policy-or-practice claims related to the denial of requests for expedited processing or public-interest fee waivers." She added that "the simple fact that the plaintiff pleaded separate causes of action for policy-or-practice claims regarding other matters confirms that the plaintiff's failure to include a policy-or-practice cause of action about these matters (i.e., expedited processing and fee waivers) was a conscious choice that the plaintiff simply now regrets. Yet, the plaintiff cannot cure the problem by attempting at the summary judgment stage, to reverse-engineer causes of action that were never pled. A plaintiff cannot ensconce claims between the lines of an otherwise garden-variety Prayer for Relief, only to embellish those obscurities into new causes of action for the first time at summary judgment." Turning to the issue of whether Muttitt was entitled to any relief on his expedited processing claims, Howell indicated that in Edmonds v. FBI, 417 F.3d 1319 (D.C. Cir. 2005), the D.C. Circuit ruled that the because the district court had granted Edmonds' expedited processing request, the agency was required to disclose all non-exempt records by a date certain. She pointed out that the only statutory relief under the expedited processing provision was to move a requester to the front of the processing queue. Applying Edmonds to Muttitt's case, Howell noted that "the Court reads the Circuit's opinion in Edmonds to mean that the only scenario in which a court can properly grant relief to a FOIA requester 'on the merits' of an expedited processing claim is when an agency has not yet provided a final substantive response to the individual's request for records. After that point, the timing of any further processing of an individual's request (either expeditiously or otherwise) necessarily occurs at the direction of the court�"pursuant to a scheduling order not the expedited processing provision of the FOIA. For this reason, the Court construes the phrase 'complete response' in 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(E)(iv) to mean a final determination under § 552(a)(6)(A), i.e., a final administrative determination whether to release records that are responsive to the individual's request. In order for its response to be 'complete,' an agency need not, as the plaintiff argues, obtain a judicial declaration that its search efforts were adequate or that its withholding determinations were warranted. Once an agency has made its final determination under § 552(a)(6)(A), the timeliness of that determination is no longer a live controversy fit for judicial review." Muttitt contended the agency's search was inadequate because it had not shown that it searched archived records for emails to or from O'Sullivan or that it had additionally searched retired records. Howell dismissed both claims. She noted that "the problem with the plaintiff's argument [concerning archived emails], however, is that it presumes the existence of an electronic, as opposed to a paper, recordkeeping system where important e-mails are transferred once an individual's e-mail account is deactivated." She observed that "the agency's own regulations give it the option of keeping such records in electronic, paper, or microform format, and the defendant's declaration establishes that the State Department has thus far elected to archive any retained e-mail records in paper format." Finding Muttitt's retired records claim to be based solely on a semantic ambiguity, Howell pointed out that "the clear context of the agency's declaration. . .confirms that the agency's search encompassed all retired files likely to contain responsive records." Muttitt claimed that the State Department had revealed certain facts contained in classified cables through its Vaughn index and those facts had to be segregated and disclosed. Howell, however, pointed out that "the plaintiff concedes that the State Department's Vaughn index adequately establishes that 'the [withheld] material pertains to foreign relations.' Furthermore, the Court finds the agency's explanation of non-segregability logical and reasonable because the 'pieces of information' denominated by the plaintiff appear unlikely to exist within the withheld document such that they could be discretely separated from the classified portions of the document. For example, the plaintiff has presented no reason to believe that the 'fact of the discussion' in [the] document is a piece of information that was specifically noted in the document, such that it could be segregated and released without releasing any classified information. On the contrary, the Court concludes that such general facts regarding the overall context of the documents are unlikely to be reasonably segregable." Muttitt fared considerably better when it came to State's Exemption 5 claims. Howell agreed with Muttitt that the agency had failed to provide sufficient information to claim the deliberative process privilege. She noted that the agency's perfunctory claims "do no fill the gaps in the factual context necessary to invoke the deliberative process privilege. In particular, three pieces of factual context normally crucial to determining whether the privilege applies�"the nature of the deliberative process involved, the role the document played in that process, and the nature of the decisionmaking authority vested in the document's author�"are noticeably absent from the State Department's descriptions of these ten documents in its Vaughn index." She added that "the State Department does not specify what role any of the ten challenged documents played in the often-unspecified deliberative process at issue." She also questioned whether some documents qualified as inter- or intra-agency records. She observed that "although unclear from the State Department's declaration, it is reasonable to assume that, since the hydrocarbon law is a piece of Iraqi legislation, the document identifies changes made by the Iraqi government, not changes made by the U.S. State Department."

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