Case Detail
| Case Title | WATTLETON V. BERRYHILL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2019cv01404 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2019-05-14 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2020-03-04 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | DAVID EARL WATTLETON | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | NANCY A. BERRYHILL Acting Commissioner of Social Security | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Opinion/Order [22] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Beryl Howell has ruled that David Wattleton failed to show that the Social Security Administration received his February 2019 FOIA request for copies of his W-2 Forms for taxable years 1986-1999, although the agency acknowledged receiving a similar request from Wattleton in April 2019, which, since it did not cite FOIA was treated instead as a Privacy Act request. Until Wattleton filed suit, claiming the agency had failed to respond to his February 2019 FOIA request, the agency was unaware of the request. However, it conducted a search for the request but only found Wattleton's April 2019 request, which, under the agency's internal policy dealing with first-person requests, was being processed as a Privacy Act request instead. Wattleton argued that an August 9, 2019 response he received from the agency confirmed that the SSA had received his request. But Howell explained that the August letter actually related to Wattleton's separate April 2019 request, which was being processed under the Privacy Act, not his alleged February 2019 request. Addressing Wattleton's FOIA request claim, Howell indicated that he had failed to show that the agency had received the request. She noted that "the purported copy of the February Request attached to his complaint, which is undated and unsigned, is insufficient to generate a genuine dispute of material fact regarding SSA's alleged receipt of the request. The plaintiff's reliance on the August Response is similarly ineffectual as the document is clearly a response to a different document request." Although Wattleton's separate request that was being processed under the Privacy Act was not even part of Wattleton's complaint, Howell decided to deal with it as well. Wattleton argued that the agency could not use its internal policy as the basis for requiring processing under the Privacy Act before being considered under FOIA. Howell disagreed, noting that "plaintiff has failed to offer any argument as to how SSA's reliance on its own internal procedures was somehow more restrictive to his request for information than if SSA processed the request under FOIA. To the contrary, SSA's policy was to apply the available procedure that provides more access to records." The agency had not begun to process his Privacy Act request because he had not provided additional identifying information. Howell pointed out that "to date, the plaintiff has failed to provide this supplemental information. This failure to perfect the April Request constitutes failure to exhaust administrative remedies."
Issues: Request - Receipt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| User-contributed Documents | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Docket Events (Hide) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
