Case Detail
| Case Title | WINN v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2017cv00833 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2017-05-05 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2019-02-06 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge John D. Bates | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | H. RICHARD WINN | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Description | Richard Winn submitted a FOIA request to the FBI for records about himself. The agency acknowledged receipt of the request and indicated that it had located 4000 pages of potentially responsive records. Winn told the agency he would like to receive the records on CD and would pay up to $115 in fees. The agency then told Winn that his request fell within the unusual circumstances exception and would be placed in the agency's backlog for processing. Winn submitted another request for records on himself and asked for a fee waiver since he planned to write a memoir of his career. The agency acknowledged that request as well, but after hearing nothing further from the agency, Winn filed suit. Complaint issues: Failure to respond within statutory time limit, Adequacy - Search, Litigation - Attorney's fees | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Complaint attachment 3 Complaint attachment 4 Opinion/Order [24] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge John Bates has ruled that the FBI properly limited its response to FOIA requests from Richard Winn, a neurosurgeon who served as chairman of the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine from 1983 to 2002 and who pled guilty to obstructing the FBI's investigation into possible Medicare and Medicaid fraud for medical services performed by the department's faculty, to records about Winn himself, even though Winn subsequently asked the agency to expand the scope of his request to encompass the entire investigation and not just his role in it. Winn made his first FOIA request to the FBI in 2015 to obtain records about himself to use in writing his memoirs. He suggested several possible locations and provided Form DOJ-361 certifying his identity. Four months later, the FBI told Winn that it had located 4,000 potentially responsive pages and that its response would be delayed because of the volume and the need to consult with field offices. After eight months without hearing from the agency, Winn submitted a second FOIA request for his FBI records but added that he was "seeking any and all files related to the investigation of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, WA. . .beginning in 1990" and explained that he had "made the same request" one year prior. Still not having heard from the agency a year later, Winn submitted a third request requesting his records and again emphasizing his interest in records pertaining to the FBI's investigation of the University of Washington School of Medicine. Two months later, Winn filed suit. The FBI searched for records and located its investigative file pertaining to the School of Medicine investigation. The file pertained to the agency's investigation of Winn but also included information about other suspects in the investigation. The FBI only processed 915 records about Winn. The agency disclosed 691 records in full or in part and withheld 296 pages in full under Exemption 3 (other statutes), Exemption 7 (law enforcement records) and Exemption 6 (invasion of privacy). Winn did not challenge the agency's search or its exemption claims but argued that he had requested the entire investigative file and that the agency had improperly narrowed his request by processing only those records pertaining to him. Alternatively, he contended that the agency had failed to release all reasonably segregable non-exempt information. Winn argued that "although his first FOIA request in March 2015 only described 'his own FBI files,'. . .he later clarified in his subsequent two FOIA requests that he was requesting all files relating to the University of Washington School of Medicine investigation" and that his counsel told DOJ in November 2017 and January 2018 that Winn's requests were for all of the investigative records. Indicating that agencies were required to interpret FOIA request liberally, Bates pointed out that "here, Winn's requests were clear: he sought his 'own FBI files.' In his initial request, Winn never mentioned the University of Washington investigation and stated only that he sought his own files. Then, in 2016, he asserted that he was making 'the same request' as he had the prior year." Pointing out that Winn had included the FBI's form for certifying his identity, which, Bates observed, "suggested that he was seeking only his own records." Bates noted that "although he stated in his 2016 and 2017 requests that he was 'seeking any and all files related to the investigation of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, WA,' he first asserted the he was seeking just his own files. Hence, Winn only 'reasonably described' his own records, and clarified that he particularly sought his records relating to the investigation." Bates observed that "that Winn eventually informed the FBI that he actually intended to seek all records relating to the investigation, including those that do not pertain to him, does not change the scope of his requests. He only told the DOJ that he wanted the full investigative file after the FBI had searched for records responsive to his original requests and had begun to produce documents." Winn argued that the FBI failed to consider the segregability of the file by processing only those records mentioning Winn. Bates found Winn's real challenge here was to the adequacy of the agency's search, not to the segregibility of records. He pointed out that Winn "appears to challenge only the FBI's failure to review and release non-responsive records from the investigative file. But the FBI was not required to search for, process, or release records that were not responsive to Winn's request."
Issues: Request - Specificity | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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