Opinion ID: 4390304
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Search for Responsive Documents 3

Text: Under FOIA, an agency responding to a request must “demonstrate that it has conducted a search reasonably calculated to uncover all relevant documents.” Hamdan v. 3 The FAA argues that the parties stipulated before the district court that “the only issue in the case concerned the legal basis for the FAA’s decision to withhold the responsive records.” While the parties “indicated their agreement that the only issue in the case concerned the legal basis for the FAA’s decision to withhold the responsive records,” Rojas argued before the district court that the FAA conducted an inadequate search, the district court held that Rojas failed to “show a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether the search conducted by the FAA was adequate under FOIA,” and both parties briefed the issue on appeal and argued reasonableness at oral argument. Therefore, the reasonableness of the FAA’s search is properly before the Court. ROJAS V. FAA 9 Dep’t of Justice, 797 F.3d 759, 770 (9th Cir. 2015) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “[T]he issue to be resolved is not whether there might exist any other documents possibly responsive to the request, but rather whether the search for those documents was adequate.” Zemansky v. EPA, 767 F.2d 569, 571 (9th Cir. 1985) (emphasis in original) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “The adequacy of the agency’s search is judged by a standard of reasonableness, construing the facts in the light most favorable to the requestor.” Citizens Comm’n on Human Rights v. Food & Drug Admin., 45 F.3d 1325, 1328 (9th Cir. 1995) (citation omitted). We conclude that the FAA failed to conduct a search reasonably calculated to uncover all relevant documents. Rojas’s FOIA request sought “information regarding the empirical validation” of the BA that was described in his rejection notice, including “any report created by, given to, or regarding APTMetrics’ evaluation and creation and scoring” of the BA. In response, the Office of the Chief Counsel located summaries of: (1) the Air Traffic Control Specialist hiring process; (2) the 2015 BA; and (3) the validation process and results of the 2015 BA. All of these records were created by APTMetrics. “[T]he government may demonstrate that it undertook an adequate search by producing reasonably detailed, nonconclusory affidavits submitted in good faith.” Lane, 523 F.3d at 1139 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Affidavits must be “relatively detailed in their description of the files searched and the search procedures.” Zemansky, 767 F.2d at 573 (internal quotation marks omitted). The agency must show that it searched for the requested records “using methods which can be reasonably 10 ROJAS V. FAA expected to produce the information requested.” Oglesby v. Dep’t of the Army, 920 F.2d 57, 68 (D.C. Cir. 1990). The FAA’s declarations did not sufficiently describe the agency’s search procedures. The declaration of Yvette Armstead, the FAA’s Assistant Chief Counsel, states that the agency “conducted a search for documents responsive to [Rojas]’s FOIA request” on two occasions—both initially and on remand from Rojas’s administrative appeal. Armstead further explains that the search was “reasonably calculated to obtain responsive records” because attorneys at the Office of the Chief Counsel who provided legal advice on revisions to the Air Traffic Control Specialist hiring process “were asked to review their records.” Attorneys located “[t]hree responsive documents” comprised of nine pages in total that “discuss[] the validation of the 2015 BA.” Armstead’s declaration is conclusory. It omits relevant details, such as names of the attorneys who searched the relevant documents and the amount of time the Office of the Chief Counsel devoted to the search. See Citizens Comm’n on Human Rights, 45 F.3d at 1328 (concluding that agency’s search was adequate where its declaration stated that the agency spent over 140 hours reviewing documents in response to the plaintiff’s FOIA request). The documents the FAA located included summaries of the Air Traffic Control Specialist hiring process, the 2015 BA, and the validation process and results of the 2015 BA. But summaries by necessity summarize something else; there is no indication that there was any search conducted for underlying documents. Thus, though Armstead’s declaration establishes that appropriate employees were contacted and briefly describes the files that were discovered, it does not demonstrate that the FAA’s search could reasonably be expected to produce the information requested—here, ROJAS V. FAA 11 “information regarding the empirical validation of the biographical assessment noted in Rojas’s rejection notification.” Construing the facts in the light most favorable to Rojas, the FAA has not shown “that it undertook an adequate search,” Lane, 523 F.3d at 1139.