Case Detail
| Case Title | CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY v. GUTIERREZ et al | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2005cv01045 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2005-05-24 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2006-08-28 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge Rosemary M. Collyer | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | CARLOS GUTIERREZ Secretary of Commerce | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | WILLIAM T. HOGARTH Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Opinion/Order [23] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Rosemary Collyer has ruled that the National Marine Fisheries Service has not adequately described documents being withheld under Exemption 5 (privileges) and has sent the case back to the agency for further substantiation of its claims. She also ruled that the Center for Biological Diversity had failed to exhaust its administrative remedies for another request by submitting its appeal electronically to the agency 12 minutes late on the last day, meaning that by recently amended FOIA regulations the appeal was considered not to have arrived until the next business day. The Center had made several requests for information concerning three coral species for which the Center had petitioned for protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Center filed suit, alleging that the agency had missed the statutory deadlines and had improperly withheld some information. Meanwhile, the agency finished its study of the coral species and concluded that two of them warranted listing as threatened species. However, the Center pressed on with its FOIA suit in an attempt to learn more about the agency's decision-making. Collyer began by noting that the Department of Commerce, the parent agency of NMFS, had adopted a regulation in August 2004 allowing for electronic appeals, but requiring that all appeals be received no later than 5 p.m. Eastern Time on the 30th day after an initial FOIA determination. The Center's appeal arrived at 5:12 p.m. on the 30th day and was denied. Denying the Center's claim, Collyer observed that "the Center advances an argument only a lawyer could love: "The regulation states that the appeal must be received by 5 p.m. Eastern time, not 5:00 PM Eastern time. By failing to provide a specific minute, such ambiguity should be resolved in the Center's favor.' The Center goes on to suggest that if the Court 'rounds down, as should be the case, 5:12 falls within NMFS's 5 p.m. requirement, and therefore the appeal was not even 12 minutes late.' The Court is not persuaded. In this context, at least, '5 p.m.' and '5:00 PM' have the same meaning and are interchangeable, even if the latter is slightly more specific. There is no ambiguity to interpret." Somehow failing to appreciate the inanity of rejecting an appeal because it was 12 minutes late, Collyer played the straightman. She noted that because the agency told the Center that it could file its appeal electronically and cited its regulation, the Center should have inferred that the agency would not accept an appeal received minutes too late. She then indicated that "had the Center's appeal actually been filed mere days after NMFS published its new timeliness requirements for FOIA appeals, the Court might be more sympathetic. But under these circumstances, it finds that NMFS set a legitimate deadline, the Center failed to meet that deadline, and NMFS simply respected its regulations and declined to review the appeal. To now ignore that deadline would frustrate the purposes of exhaustion." Turning to the exemption claims, Collyer pointed out that "NMFS's repeated refrain that the withheld documents are 'predecisional and deliberative,' 'preliminary recommendations' that 'would discourage open, frank discussions' and 'do not represent a final agency decision' is nothing more than perfunctory legalese." She found many documents had no more description than "email," and noted that "this is insufficient to establish 'the role played by the documents in issue in the course of [the deliberative] process.'" She also indicated the agency had made no segregability findings. Referring the Vaughn index back to the agency for further substantiation, she observed that "the Court does not rule that any of the documents or portions of documents withheld in response to [the Center's] request are ineligible for protection under Exemption 5; rather, it finds the Vaughn Index inadequate for making that determination."
Opinion/Order [24]Issues: Litigation - Jurisdiction - Failure to Exhaust, Determination - Appeal Rights, Exemption 5 - Privileges - Deliberative process privilege - Deliberative | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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