Court Opinion

ID: 9487872
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:28:45.298288+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:32.040840
License: Public Domain

*121MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur that Pollack had constructively exhausted his administrative appeals and so prevailed on that point, as indeed he should, given the extreme dilatoriness with which the Department of Justice responded to his requests. Taking over a year is not acting promptly. .
Yet, I also concur that Pollack’s refusal to arrange for satisfaction of his fee obligations has led to a victory for. the Department. It is not one to be proud of. Pollack’s requests were well within his rights under FOIA, and the Department’s failure to acknowledge, never mind respond, to them promptly, met neither the letter nor the spirit of the statute. .
Still Pollack was required to pay the fees.. His annoyance at the treatment (or more accurately the non-treatment) his case, was receiving from the Department of Justice is understandable but “two wrongs don’t make a right.”