Case Detail
| Case Title | Greene v. U.S. Department of Justice et al | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Minnesota | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | DMN | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 0:2020cv01207 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2020-05-19 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2022-01-18 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge Eric C. Tostrud | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | Kyle Richard Greene | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Description | Kyle Greene submitted a FOIA request to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota for records concerning policies and regulations. The agency acknowledged receipt of the request but after hearing nothing further from the agency, Greene filed suit. Complaint issues: Failure to respond within statutory time limit, Litigation - Recovery of Costs | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | U.S. Department of Justice | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | Natasha Hudgens FOIA Liaison | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | Natasha Hudgens FOIA Liaison TERMINATED: 04/09/2021 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Appeal | Eighth Circuit 21-2666 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Complaint attachment 3 Complaint attachment 4 Complaint attachment 5 Opinion/Order [31] FOIA Project Annotation: A federal court in Minnesota has ruled that while the Department of Justice did not show that Kyle Richard Greene failed to exhaust his administrative remedies for purposes of filing suit against the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys after the agency did not respond to his request within the statutory time limit, the court found that the agency's subsequent search and disclosure of records was sufficient to show that it had conducted an adequate search. Greene submitted a 10-part FOIA request to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota for records pertaining to the number of indictments and their further prosecution. After the agency failed to respond on time, Greene filed suit, alleging only that the agency had violated FOA's time limits. In response to the suit, the agency searched for responsive records to eight subparts in the USAO's Office in Minnesota and referred the other two subparts to EOUSA's Washington office. The agency then provided Greene a list responding to the ten subparts and filed a motion for summary judgment. The agency argued that Greene's suit was moot because it alleged only a violation of the time limits and once the agency had responded, there was no remaining cause of action. District Court Judge Eric Tostrud agreed in part, observing that "insofar as Greene's Complaint raised a 'timeliness' claim â€" that is, a challenge to the timing of DOJ's response, irrespective of the substance of the response â€" that claim is now moot because DOJ has provided a response." Tostrud then pointed out that "the Complaint is best understood to extend beyond the timing of DOJ's response to its substantive adequacy." He explained that "to be sure, the Complaint could not have alleged specific reasons why DOJ's response was inadequate because the response did not exist when Greene filed it." He indicated that "here, Greene made sufficiently clear that he intended to 'raise the issue of his ultimate entitlement to have access to the records'. In other words, a live controversy remains concerning the adequacy of DOJ's response, and DOJ's motion will accordingly be denied to the extent it seeks complete dismissal of the action on mootness grounds." DOJ next argued that in order to challenge the agency's response, Greene was required to first file an administrative appeal. Again, Tostrud disagreed. He noted that "§ 552(a)(6)(C) [the provision pertaining to filing a FOIA request] allows constructive exhaustion of all aspects of a plaintiff's FOIA claim, not just a challenge to the timeliness of the agency's response. This conclusion is more consistent with the text of the statue, which deems a person making a FOIA request 'to have exhausted his administrative remedies with respect to such a request. Nothing in this text limits its applicability to questions of timeliness or suggests that it loses effect once the agency provides a response. Indeed, the phrase 'with respect to such request' suggests just the opposite: that constructive exhaustion applies to the whole request." Applying the conclusion here, Tostrud explained that "DOJ acknowledged receipt of [Greene's] request. . .but it did not determine whether to comply or otherwise provide a response to the request within 30 days. This did not comply with FOIA's time limit provisions and Greene was accordingly 'deemed to have exhausted his administrative remedies with respect to [his] request' at the time he filed this law sit in May 2020. This remained true after DOJ provided a response in October 2020." Having removed the remaining obstacle to Greene's ability to challenge the adequacy of the search, Tostrud concluded that DOJ's response was nevertheless adequate. He observed that "in short, the only evidence in the record indicates that DOJ looked where the records might reasonably have been found, that no other responsive records exist, and that the agency has fully discharged its obligations to respond to Greene's request, even if it was late in doing so."
Issues: Time Limits - Constructive exhaustion of administrative remedies | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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