Case Detail
| Case Title | CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON, et al. v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2018cv00114 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2018-01-18 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2020-04-23 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge Carl J. Nichols | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Description | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington submitted a FOIA request to the Department of Housing and Urban Development for records concerning the involvement of Secretary Ben Carson's family in the department. CREW asked for a fee waiver and inclusion in the news media fee category. The agency denied CREW's request for a fee waiver. CREW filed an administrative appeal of the agency's denial of its fee waiver request. CREW submitted a second FOIA for records concerning Carson's travel expenses. CREW asked for a fee waiver, which was denied. CREW filed an administrative appeal of that decision to deny CREW's fee waiver request. The Freedom from Religion Foundation submitted a FOIA request to HUD for records concerning contacts with Capitol Ministries, an organization whose goal was to evangelize elected officials. FFRF also requested a fee waiver. The agency defined FFRF's fee waiver request. FFRF filed an administrative appeal of the decision to deny its fee waiver request. That appeal was also denied. FFRF then filed a second FOIA request for records concerning the Revive Us 2 event Carson had attended at the Museum of the Bible. FFRF requested a fee waiver for that request. The agency denied FFRF's request for a fee waiver. FFRF filed an administrative appeal of the denial of its fee waive request, which was denied. Both CREW and FFRF then filed suit. Complaint issues: Failure to respond within statutory time limit, Litigation - Attorney's fees, Public Interest Fee Waiver | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Complaint attachment 3 Complaint attachment 4 Opinion/Order [30] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Carl Nichols has ruled that a policy or practice claim made by CREW and the Freedom from Religion Foundation challenging the Department of Housing and Urban Development's policy of immediately rejecting fee waiver requests may continue but that because the agency did not charge fees for the two requests submitted by both CREW and FFRF those allegations are now moot. Since the Trump administration began, HUD has revised its fee waiver policy to routinely deny fee waivers with little or no analysis. Further, it routinely ignores requests for inclusion in the preferential fee category for news media or educational institutions. To challenge these policy changes, CREW and FFRF submitted a series of FOIA requests, asking for a fee waiver and indicating that they qualified for the news media fee category. CREW and FFRF told HUD that as frequent requesters, they were likely to continue to make requests to HUD. After the agency denied CREW's fee waiver requests, CREW filed administrative appeals. The agency denied its appeals and told CREW that its request for inclusion in the new media fee category was not ripe for appeal. The agency also denied requests from FFRF for fee waiver and inclusion in the news media fee category. FFRF also appealed those decisions. The agency subsequently denied the appeals, explaining that one request would not shed light on agency operations and that FFRF had failed to show how it intended to disseminate information from its second request to the general public. CREW and FFRF filed suit jointly, challenging the fee waiver decisions and including a policy or practice claim. In responding to the four requests, HUD decided to waive all the fees. HUD argued that because it had waived the fees for all the requests, the entire suit was moot. CREW and FFRF argued that their four FOIA requests were not moot because the agency had not yet competed processing them. Noting that "there is less to this dispute than the Parties contend," Nichols pointed out that "HUD is correct that the plain language of the counts alleges no FOIA violation beyond a wrongful denial of fees and a failure to address CREW's claimed news media status. The Complaint does not allege a failure to produce documents in a timely fashion or improper withholding of documents under FOIA's permitted exemptions. For this reason and because HUD waived fees for the requests, Courts II-IV are moot. If HUD were to change its mind and charge fees for these requests, Plaintiffs would be entitled to resurrect their claims." Nichols also decided to dismiss CREW's claim for inclusion in the news media fee category since "that request either is outside the scope of the Complaint or overlaps with the illegal policy-or-practice allegation contained in Count I." Nichols then observed that the D.C. Circuit had recently ruled in Judicial Watch v. Dept of Homeland Security, 895 F.3d 770 (D.C. Cir. 2018), that the policy or pattern cause of action first identified in Payne Enterprises v. United States, 837 F.2d 486 (D.C. Cir. 1988), extended to violations of the statutory times limits as well. He noted that "here, Count I states a claim under Payne. CREW and FFRF allege that HUD 'is engaged in a policy and practice of violating the FOIA's fee waiver provisions by intentionally refusing to grant fee waivers to non-profit, public interest organizations that satisfy all the statutory and regulatory criteria. . .where disclosure of the requested documents is likely to cast the agency or HUD Secretary Ben Carson in a negative light.'" HUD argued that CREW and FFRF had not shown that the agency was acting in bad faith in denying fee waiver requests. But Nichols observed that "once again, that is a question for summary judgment. It may be the case that HUD engages in a good faith effort to exercise its authority over fee waivers; or perhaps it has a practice of denying every waiver request in the hope that requesters will abandon their efforts. But on a motion to dismiss, the question is merely whether the Complaint adequately alleges a persistent, willful policy of violating FOIA's commands. It does."
Issues: Public Interest Fee Waiver | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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