Court Opinion

ID: 9466994
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:35:12.229993+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:05.661258
License: Public Domain

WALD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I dissent on the ground that Krohn’s request was not so unfocused or burdensome, as the majority opinion asserts, as to justify summary rejection either because it required the creation of new records, or because it failed to adequately describe the records sought. Krohn’s FOIA request was specifically for “the smallest set of records” which would allow him to collect the data he seeks, App. I at 21, and Krohn later asserted he would take whatever records exist, even if they are “fragmentary and inaccurate.” Id. at 28. Thus, I find it impossible to conclude in this setting that Krohn’s request asked the government to create documents. Krohn also offered to limit his request to the criminal sentencing cases for 1977 of a single district judge, if the government would further substantiate its claims of burden in the Rowe affidavit. In these circumstances, I cannot find that the government’s burden of responding to Krohn’s request justified denying that request, or that his request was so vague that Irons v. Schuyler, 465 F.2d 608 (D.C.Cir.), cert, denied, 409 U.S. 1076, 93 S.Ct. 682, 34 L.Ed.2d 664 (1972), sanctioned its denial.
The government has not, contrary to the opinions of the majority and the district court, asserted that absolutely no documents responsive to Krohn’s request exist. The Rowe affidavit in fact indicates that some documents do exist, they just “[do] not exist in a form that, if collected, would be reliably accurate.” App. I at 17. The government’s brief also admits that some of the data Krohn requested could be located but asserts that documents relating to plea bargaining and allocution “simply do not exist because there is no requirement that such records be separately maintained.” Gov’t Br. 11 n.6 (emphasis supplied). The fact that records need not be maintained does not of course establish they do not exist, and in fact the government goes on to admit that some plea bargaining and allocution information may be in its files but *199argues that its release “would not be responsive to appellant’s request for all the listed information from each and every file.” Id. I can find no basis in the FOIA or elsewhere, however, for withholding data contained in some files simply because it is not present in others.
Because neither the Rowe affidavit nor the government’s brief establishes that no responsive documents exist, and because of the way Krohn has couched his request, I find the reasoning in Disabled Officer’s Ass’n v. Rumsfeld, 428 F.Supp. 454 (D.D.C. 1977), aff’d without opinion, 574 F.2d 636 (D.C.Cir.1978), instructive. The names and addresses the Association requested in that case were available on various personnel and other records in the Defense Department, but because all of them were not on a single document, the Department argued that the Association had “not requested an identifiable agency record within the meaning of the FOIA.” 428 F.Supp. at 456 (emphasis in original). That argument was rejected:
Plaintiff is not attempting to use the FOIA to force defendants to create a record which they do not already have, and its request is one for an existing record within the meaning of the Act. If the Department of Defense did not maintain records on retired disabled officers, then plaintiff’s request could be seen as an attempt to compel defendants to compile information they do not possess and Renegotiation Board v. Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp., supra, would have more applicability to this case. However, defendants have stated that the Department of Defense has personnel and financial records pertaining to retired disabled officers, and plaintiff is only requesting them to disclose a limited portion of, or amount of information from these files, the names and addresses of the retired disabled officers. The fact that defendants may have to search numerous records to comply with the request and that the net result of complying with the request will be a document the agency did not previously possess is not unusual in FOIA cases nor does this preclude the applicability of the Act.
Id. Cf., Ditlow v. Schultz, 517 F.2d 166 (D.C.Cir.1975); Wine Hobby USA, Inc. v. IRS, 502 F.2d 133 (3d Cir. 1974).
I would remand for further explanation by the government as to why it cannot produce at least some of the documents Krohn requested.