Case Detail
| Case Title | ROGERS v. EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2018cv00454 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2018-02-26 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2019-04-12 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge Reggie B. Walton | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | JON R. ROGERS | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Description | Jon Rogers submitted a FOIA request to the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys for records concerning two investigations involving Rogers conducted by the IRS and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio. The agency told Rogers that he had waived his FOIA rights as part of his settlement agreement. Rogers filed an administrative appeal, arguing that the terms of the settlement agreement had been waived. The Office of Information Policy remanded his case back to EOUSA for response. Rogers contacted the agency several times to check on the status of his request, but after hearing nothing further from the agency, Rogers filed suit. Complaint issues: Failure to respond within statutory time limit, Litigation - Vaughn index, Litigation - Attorney's fees | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Complaint attachment 3 Complaint attachment 4 Complaint attachment 5 Complaint attachment 6 Complaint attachment 7 Complaint attachment 8 Complaint attachment 9 Complaint attachment 10 Complaint attachment 11 Complaint attachment 12 Complaint attachment 13 Complaint attachment 14 Complaint attachment 15 Complaint attachment 16 Complaint attachment 17 Complaint attachment 18 Complaint attachment 19 Complaint attachment 20 Complaint attachment 21 Complaint attachment 22 Complaint attachment 23 Opinion/Order [17] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Reggie Walton has ruled that a settlement agreement that Jon Rogers signed with the IRS to resolve a civil forfeiture action against him prohibits him from pursuing litigation related to the forfeiture action, including FOIA litigation. Rogers had already litigated the agency's refusal to provide all responsive records in district court in Ohio and the Sixth Circuit. However, he filed suit against EOUSA in the D.C. Circuit district court that included claims under FOIA and the Privacy Act. The agency argued that the settlement agreement acted as a bar against any related litigation. Rogers pointed to the D.C. Circuit's ruling in Price v. Dept Justice Attorney Office, 865 F.3d 676 (D.C. Cir. 2017), in which the court found that plea agreements resolving criminal charges did not waive the individual's right to pursue FOIA litigation, as evidence that such broad agreements did not bar such litigation. Walton ultimately disagreed, distinguishing Rogers' settlement agreement from a plea agreement. He noted that "no published opinion, to the Court's knowledge, has found that the Price holding applies to civil settlement agreements. Rather, even though decided before Price, other members of this Court have upheld the waiver of FOIA rights in the context of civil settlement agreements." Rogers argued that the Office of Information Policy implicitly waived the settlement agreement when it remanded Rogers' request on appeal. But Walton pointed out that "nowhere in the 2016 decision does the OIP expressly indicate that it was remanding the plaintiff's FOIA request because it found that the defendant had waived the terms of the Settlement Agreement. Therefore, the Court concludes that the purported waiver by the OIP was not made in the 'unmistakable terms' required for a valid waiver by a sovereign authority." Rogers also argued that the doctrine of collateral estoppel prevented the government from enforcing the settlement agreement. Walton, however, observed that "the plaintiff cannot demonstrate that 'an "injustice" will result if the defendant is not estopped from withholding these materials' because the plaintiff has not demonstrated that he is entitled to the requested documents, and therefore the defendant's withholding of the request documents is 'of no consequence.'"
Issues: Litigation - Jurisdiction - Failure to State a Claim | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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