Case Detail
| Case Title | BAKER v. CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2018cv02403 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2018-10-18 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2021-09-20 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge Carl J. Nichols | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | JOSHUA BAKER | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Description | Joshua Baker, an attorney, submitted a FOIA request to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for records concerning the 2015 Civil Investigative Demand issued by the agency to Zillow Group. The agency acknowledged receipt of the request and told Baker that the cost of processing his request would be $35,000. Baker's law firm paid the $35,000. The agency told Baker that his request was placed in the complex queue for processing. After hearing nothing further from the agency, Baker filed suit. Complaint issues: Failure to respond within statutory time limit, Adequacy - Search, Litigation - Vaughn index, Litigation - Attorney's fees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU 1700 G Street NW Washington, DC 20552 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | ZILLOW GROUP, INC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Complaint attachment 3 Complaint attachment 4 Opinion/Order [10] FOIA Project Annotation: A recent case pitting the legitimate need for government information by an attorney whose primary practice is completely unrelated to FOIA against the realities of expedited disclosure under FOIA provides an interesting discussion about the limited usefulness of FOIA as a vehicle for supporting class-action suits that would benefit from the inclusion of government information but that fail to articulate any recognized basis for forcing an agency to expedite the processing of a request. The case involved a request from Joshua Baker, an attorney at the Rosen Law Firm that was representing purchasers of Zillow securities in a class action suit alleging violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Baker submitted a FOIA request to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for records concerning its investigation of Zillow. The agency provided a fee estimate of $35,160 to search for the records. Rosen promptly sent a check for the full amount, but weeks later discovered that the agency had not cashed the check. When Baker called the FOIA analyst assigned to his request for an explanation, he was told that the agency had held off on cashing the check because it was likely to withhold or redact the vast majority of the 630,000 potentially responsive records. Baker was given an opportunity to narrow the scope of his request, but he declined to do so. The agency then told Baker his request had been put in the complex queue, that there were approximately 20 complex requests ahead of his, and that it would probably take six to nine months to process his request. Baker filed a complaint arguing that the agency had violated FOIA by failing to respond within the statutory 20-day time limit and ultimately asked the court to grant him a preliminary injunction requiring the agency to process and disclose the records within 90 days. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly started by explaining the four factors for assessing whether or not to grant a preliminary injunction â€" (1) the likelihood of success on the merits, (2) the likelihood that the plaintiff will suffer irreparable harm without preliminary relief, (3) the balance of equities tips in favor of the plaintiff, and (4) the injunction is in the public interest. After describing the four factors, Kollar-Kotelly observed that Baker had not requested expediting processing, the remedy included in FOIA for speeding the process of responding to a request. She pointed out that "if such processing is not sought, Defendant considers the complexity of the request and other facts in deciding where in the processing queue the request falls. In this case, having failed to request expedited processing administratively, Plaintiff asks this Court to help him jump from his position as approximately twentieth in the 'complex' queue and have his request proceed before those of all the other individuals waiting, including those approved for expedited processing." She added that "but even ignoring Plaintiff's failure to request expedited processing, the Court concludes that Plaintiff has failed to establish a likelihood of success on the merits, to show irreparable harm, or to demonstrate that the balance of hardships and the public interest weigh in favor of injunctive relief." Baker based his likelihood of success claim on the obvious fact that the agency had failed to respond within 20 days. In response, Kollar-Kotelly noted that "but, Plaintiff misunderstands the consequences that follow when an agency fails to meet this twenty-day deadline." She pointed out that "Plaintiff argues that Defendant's failure to comply with the twenty-day deadline means that 'Plaintiff is entitled to the immediate processing of his request and the release of the requested records.' But, an agency's violation of the twenty-day deadline does not entitle the requester to immediate processing and release of the responsive documents." She explained that in CREW v. FEC, 711 F.3d 180 (D.C. Cir. 2013), the D.C. Circuit held that "when an agency fails to make an initial determination within twenty days, 'the penalty' is that the agency cannot rely on the administrative exhaustion requirement to keep cases from getting into court. Rather, the requester is deemed to have exhausted his administrative remedies and can seek immediate judicial review of the agency's processing of the request. In sum, CREW v. FEC makes clear that the impact of blowing the 20-day deadline relates only to the requester's ability to get into court.'" Baker argued that CFPB had not shown the existence of exceptional circumstances that would qualify them to process the request more slowly. Kollar-Kotelly disagreed, noting that CFPB had shown that its number of FOIA requests each year had consistently grown by 25 percent and that its increase in 2017-2018 had been 47 percent. This had resulted in the agency having 174 pending requests, 75 of which were considered complex. Further, the agency had increased from three to five its full-time FOIA staff. In response to Baker's allegation that CFPB was not showing due diligence, Kollar-Kotelly pointed out that "the fact that Defendant has not been able to review and release these responsive documents due to the approximately 100 FOIA requests ahead of Plaintiff's, twenty of which are complex, does not show a lack of diligence." Kollar-Kotelly rejected Baker's irreparable harm claim as well. Baker argued that class-action plaintiffs would be harmed if the records were not disclosed in 90 days. Kollar-Kotelly observed that "this is not they type of harm that FOIA was created to address." She added that "while Plaintiff's rights under FOIA are not diminished by the personal reason for his request, neither is FOIA concerned with the effect disclosure or lack thereof will have on Plaintiff's lawsuit." She dismissed Baker's claim that access to the records would allow him to write a more effective complaint in the class-action litigation. She pointed out that "Plaintiff has pointed to no case law supporting his proposition that the inability to draft a more effective complaint is a legally recognized irreparable harm." She also rejected Baker's claim that the public interest would suffer if the records were not disclosed in a timelier fashion. She observed that "the Court is not convinced that Plaintiff will be irreparably harmed if the preliminary injunction is not granted. Besides his own pleading deadline, Plaintiff has not presented evidence of any time-sensitive need for the documents." Balancing Baker's need for immediate access against the purported hardships caused to other requesters, Kollar-Kotelly found Baker was not entitled to an injunction. She explained that "Plaintiff is in effect asking the Government to expend resources to process quickly his request for documents needed for his clients' lawsuit, before processing the records of other requesters. Granting the type of request made by Plaintiff would harm the approximately 100 other requesters, 20 of whom have complex requests, in line ahead of Plaintiff and would erode the proper functioning of the FOIA system."
Issues: Litigation - Jurisdiction - Injunction, Expedited processing, Delay - Exceptional circumstance | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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