Case Detail
| Case Title | PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS, INC. v. BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2011cv00555 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2011-03-17 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2011-08-03 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge Ellen S. Huvelle | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS, INC. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Complaint attachment 3 Complaint attachment 4 Complaint attachment 5 Complaint attachment 6 Complaint attachment 7 Opinion/Order [18] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle has ruled that the Bureau of Indian Affairs conducted an adequate search for three leases, known as the Bear leases, entered into by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians that were the subject of two requests submitted by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, even though 420 pages were not found until after PETA had filed suit. PETA submitted its first request for the Bear leases in August 2010. The agency housed the leases in hard-copy only at its Cherokee Agency office in Cherokee, North Carolina. The agency disclosed 273 pages in September. PETA filed another request in October for any further documents. The Cherokee Agency office conducted another search and found no new records. After BIA failed to respond to PETA's administrative appeal, the organization filed suit in March 2011. BIA's Branch of Tribal Government, Eastern Region Office asked the Cherokee Agency office to provide it a copy of all the Bear leases. After receiving them, the Office sent them electronically to BIA headquarters. The agency released another 420 pages in April. PETA argued that because it did not get all the documents until after it filed suit, the pre-litigation search must be inadequate. Deciding that the dispute boiled down to whether the search for records responsive to the October request was inadequate, Huvelle noted that "even if the October search has been inadequate, it is well settled in this Circuit that the subsequent production of responsive documents can remedy inadequate searches. Further, that subsequent production cannot serve as proof that the agency conducted an unreasonable search initially or acted in bad faith, for such a rule would punish those agencies that attempted to correct past inadequate searches." She pointed out that "the BIA has remedied whatever inadequacies might have existed in response to the October request by subsequently searching every single document in every single file that could have contained responsive documents, ultimately producing thirty-seven more documents totaling over 400 pages in April 2011." PETA argued that Nkihtaqmikon v. Bureau of Indian Affairs, 672 F. Supp. 2d 154 (D. Me. 2009), showed that BIA had a track record of improperly responding to FOIA requests. But Huvelle indicated that in Nkihtaqmikon the agency had failed to conduct a search calculated to uncover all responsive records, which was not the case here. She observed that "the fact that the agency has been unable to explain why its second search was not fruitful does not detract from the Court's conclusions nor does it permit the argument that defendant has engaged in a pattern or practice of not conducting adequate searches."
Issues: Adequacy - Search | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| User-contributed Documents | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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