Court Opinion

ID: 9475447
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:27:46.845252+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:22.613376
License: Public Domain

GESELL, District Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent: The majority has treated this routine FOIA case in a manner that misconceives the special nature of this type of litigation. The holding that Dettmann should have pursued administrative remedy twice frustrates the purpose of the Act and is impractical and unnecessary.
FOIA is a disclosure statute. Its effectiveness often depends on prompt response. In many instances the purposes of the Act are already being thwarted by delay. To require a requester to appeal a second time if he is not satisfied with a partial success on his first appeal further encumbers the already overloaded, underfinanced FOIA staffs of many agencies. FOIA appeals presently cannot be perfected in numerous cases because of the 20-day limitation that permits suit if an appeal is not completed in that time.
Nothing in the Act or regulations suggests that intraagency appeals have particular significance other than to assure uniformity of agency interpretation and certainly there is nothing to suggest the double appeal approach sponsored by the majority here. There is, in any event, no FOIA stare decisis. Dettmann will get the documents eventually in another case brought under her name or by someone else on her behalf.
There are many practical considerations that should have been weighed. The parties have been given no opportunity to brief them or advise this Court or the District Court. A few considerations will be mentioned merely to illustrate. The bulk of *1478requesters proceed without counsel, as did Dettmann in the later stages of her case. Many are incarcerated. They do not appear, but look to the Court to protect their interests. To add a further legalistic complexity may necessitate providing lawyers, at government expense, to protect procedural rights which the Court cannot monitor in advance. The ruling is also inexact and does not define the types of cases requiring a second appeal. Moreover, the second appeal would have been wholly futile. The “see” policy developed by the Department of Justice has been in effect for some time and is being followed in cases now before the courts. Numerous pending “see” cases will only be confused. The delaying effect of this ruling has not been measured or apparently considered.
The majority candidly admits that Dettmann clearly sought the full text of certain documents and after appeal got only part, without the remaining part being withheld under any claim of exemption. I would remand with direction that the remaining portions of the “see” documents be processed in regular course. To require Dettmann to file a new suit and start all over again to get what she seeks is a waste that places form over substance, delays relief and unnecessarily conflicts with the purposes of the statute, and is against the best interests of the agencies affected.