Case Detail
| Case Title | HALL & ASSOCIATES v. U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2010cv01940 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2010-11-12 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2012-03-07 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | HALL & ASSOCIATES | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Opinion/Order [21] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Royce Lamberth has ruled that the EPA improperly charged Hall & Associates to review records for segregability after being ordered to do so by the agency's administrative appeals authority. Hall requested records on the agency's current and historical position on whether states with approved discharge programs under the Clean Water Act could authorize bacteria mixing zones in freshwater lakes and rivers. After an extensive database search, the agency charged Hall $372 in search, duplication, and review costs, disclosed 30 documents, and withheld 300 documents under Exemption 5 (deliberative process privilege). Hall appealed the denial of documents under Exemption 5 as well as complaining about the agency's failure to indicate what documents were responsive to which part of Hall's request. The Office of General Counsel granted Hall's appeal and remanded the request to the Office of Science and Technology for a review of whether any releasable information could be reasonably segregated from exempt material. The letter indicated it was the agency's final determination on the appeal and did not include a statement regarding the need for further payment from Hall. The Office of Science and Technology then assessed the costs of reviewing and redacting segregable material and asked Hall to pay an additional $3,280. EPA also told Hall it would cost an additional $615 to provide a categorical summary of its response. Hall ultimately agreed to pay $205 for the categorical response, but refused to pay the fees for the segregability review. Hall then filed suit. Hall argued the agency could charge fees only for initial review and pointed to EPA regulations specifically prohibiting fees as the result of an administrative appeal. Noting that there was no D.C. Circuit case law on the issue, Lamberth found Hall's citation to AutoAlliance International v. U.S. Customs Service, (E.D. Mich., July 31, 2003), a case in which the court found the agency could not charge for review as the result of an appeal, was persuasive. In contrast, he rejected the agency's reliance on Gavin v. SEC, (D. Minn. 2006), in which the court allowed the agency to charge for a search the agency conducted as a result of the court's order. Lamberth noted that "the Court sees EPA's argument as a meritless attempt to skirt the plain meaning of 'initial review' as contemplated by the FOIA statute and EPA regulation governing these fees. The administrative appeal determinationâ€"conspicuously silent on this fee issueâ€"found that EPA's initial response to Hall's FOIA request was deficient and mandated that the Agency conduct a segregability analysis that it should have performed initially. EPA takes that finding to mean that because EPA improperly withheld documents in its first response, it is now allowed to charge Hall additional fees for the time needed to cure its deficient response. But when the Agency's FOIA response is deemed inadequate on appeal, the Agency cannot make its production of the originally improperly withheld documents contingent upon further payment from the requester under the theory that the work done in an effort to cure its initial inadequate response is still part of the 'initial review.'" Lamberth rejected EPA's claim that Hall had failed to exhaust administrative remedies by not appealing the agency's various requests for further payment. He found Hall had appealed EPA's initial determination on its request, but pointed out that "all other EPA correspondence with Hall surrounding Hall's FOIA request, including those [other] communications between the parties pertaining to fees, were void of [the right to appeal] language." Hall contended EPA's response had been inadequate because it failed to provide a categorical summary of the responsive records. But Lamberth pointed out that "Hall cannot dispute the adequacy of EPA's response without simultaneously disputing the adequacy of EPA's search, because the Agency's response is necessarily the result of its searchâ€"they are two sides of the same coin. If Hall does not challenge the adequacy of EPA's search, as it maintains, then it is unclear what Hall does argueâ€"that EPA improperly categorized responsive documents in the summary, or that EPA located responsive documents in the course of its search but failed to turn those documents over to Hall. Neither argument is developed in Hall's pleadings."
Issues: Fees | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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