Case Detail
| Case Title | Our Children's Earth Foundation et al v. National Marine Fisheries Service et al | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | Northern District of California | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | San Francisco | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 3:2014cv01130 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2014-03-11 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2016-03-14 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Hon. William H. Orrick | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | Our Children's Earth Foundation a non-profit corporation | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | Ecological Rights Foundation a non-profit corporation | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Description | Our Children's Earth Foundation and the Ecological Rights Foundation submitted two FOIA requests to the National Marine Fisheries Service for records concerning the potential impact of Stanford University's water diversion plan on the Central California Coastal steelhead. After delays and partial responses, the foundations filed suit, alleging the agency's conduct constituted a pattern and practice of violating FOIA. Complaint issues: Adequacy - Search, Litigation - Attorney's fees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | National Marine Fisheries Service | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | Penny Prittzker in official capacity as Secretary of Commerce | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | Rodney McInnes in official capacity as Regional Administrator, NMFS Southwest Region | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | United States Fish And Wildlife Service | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | Sally Jewell as Secretary of the Interior | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | Dft | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Opinion/Order [59] FOIA Project Annotation: A federal court in California has granted declaratory judgment to Our Children's Earth Foundation after finding the National Marine Fisheries Service's routine violation of FOIA's time limits constituted a pattern and practice. Judge Samuel Conti noted that "although the Court and many others have recognized that agencies' resources are heavily taxed by the quantity and depth of FOIA requests, that does not grant the agency carte blanche to repeatedly violate congressionally mandated deadlines." The case involved four FOIA requests that the Foundation made as part of its complex litigation against the government for alleged violations of the Endangered Species Act relating to the Steelhead trout and the role Stanford University's water-use practices might play in the Steelhead's fate. The Foundation challenged the agency's search as to two of the four requests. While the affidavit of Gary Stern, the Branch Chief of the Fisheries Service's San Francisco Bay Branch, provided significant detail as to the search for one request that yielded 36,000 pages, the court was disturbed by the lack of detail pertaining to the search for the second request, particularly since the search did not uncover responsive records of an investigation in the Office of Law Enforcement, even though Stern was part of some conversations pertaining to those records. Conti noted that "documents from that investigation clearly fall within the Scope of Plaintiffs' first and third FOIA requests. . .Yet it is undisputed that Plaintiffs' requests were not forwarded to the Office of Law Enforcement and no searches took place there." The agency had withheld information on email chains identifying personnel in the Office of Law Enforcement under Exemption 6 (invasion of privacy). Conti observed that "the investigation of the Steelhead is not hotly controversial and is unlikely to subject any of the individuals involved to harassment or embarrassment." Finding the agency's claims were so far insufficiently justified, he pointed out that "to be sure, there may well be some non-trivial privacy interest implicated here. However, the Court cannot conclude these documents are categorically protected merely because they contain names and contact information." He found the agency had failed to show that it had conducted an adequate segregability analysis for records withheld under Exemption 5 (privileges). He pointed out that an attachment containing an email about a conversation between Stern and a staffer of a public interest organization that Stern forwarded to an agency attorney for legal advice did not likely qualify for attorney-client privilege.
Opinion/Order [70]Issues: Segregability - Disclosure of all non-exempt records, Exemption 7(C) - Invasion of privacy concerning law enforcement records, Adequacy - Search Opinion/Order [72] FOIA Project Annotation: A federal court in California has ruled that the National Marine Fisheries Service has finally shown that it conducted an adequate search for records requested by Our Children's Earth Foundation, properly withheld a document under Exemption 5 (deliberative process privilege), and sufficiently justified its segregability analysis. Further, while the court admonished the agency for its constant lengthy delays in processing FOIA requests, it concluded that the agency's performance in this case had improved sufficiently enough to show that it no longer had a pattern or practice of violating FOIA through delay. The Foundation challenged the search primarily on the basis that the agency's affidavits constituted hearsay because they were not based on personal knowledge. But Judge Samuel Conti noted that "the Court finds that the affidavits submitted are from the supervisor in charge of coordinating the search efforts or person responsible for 'portions of' the search, and thus overrules the objection." Conti agreed with the agency that a draft chart was protected by the deliberative process privilege. He pointed out that "while perhaps not directly meant to assist decisionmakers to arrive at a decision, it is clear the author meant to educate a more senior member of the office on whether and why to request a (perhaps higher-up) decisionmaker to arrive at a specific decision." The Foundation argued that while the document might be predecisional, it was not deliberative. But Conti observed that "the Fisheries Service makes clear that exposure of the remainder of the document in question would provide nothing more than the personal opinions of a single, lower-level worker (opinions based in part on materials later deemed factually erroneous) who was trying to have a frank and open dialogue with a senior employee on whether and how to make a recommendation to a decisionmaker." Conti relied on the Ninth Circuit's recent decision in Hamdan v. Dept of Justice, 797 F.3d 779 (9th Cir. 2015), in which the appellate court found that the FBI and the Department of State had provided adequate explanations of their segregability review, while the DIA's explanation was virtually non-existent. Comparing the appellate court's findings to those of the NMFS, Conti indicated that "on the whole, this case seems most analogous to the submission by the FBI, where the declarations are not ideal but the disclosures and cited exceptions show enough good faith that the Court should accept the agency's explanations at face value." Conti noted that "several pieces of information suggest that insofar as there may have been a pattern-and-practice [of delay], it is being corrected," including quicker processing times. Conti observed that "the evidence is clear as to whether a pattern-and-practice existed in the past. Moreover, Plaintiffs provide the Court a reasonable basis to believe that these infractions will be ongoing." Rather than sanction the agency, Conti ordered it to complete any outstanding requests by the Foundation. He pointed out that "while the Court cannot accept good faith as a shield to fully protect Defendants from rebuke, the ongoing efforts of the Fisheries Service to improve suggested that intervention by the Court may not be necessary to fix ongoing violations. The Court stands by its earlier reasoning, and its belief that some leniency in the exercise of its discretion may be merited. However, the Court cannot turn a blind eye to the evidence put forth by Plaintiffs."
Opinion/Order [74]Issues: Exemption 5 - Privileges - Deliberative process privilege - Deliberative, Adequacy - Search Opinion/Order [75] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge William Orrick has resolved the remaining issues left over in a pattern and practice case against the National Marine Fisheries Service by the retirement of Judge Samuel Conti. Conti had ruled previously that NMFS has failed to respond to a series of complex requests submitted by Our Children's Earth Foundation and that as a result, the agency appeared to have a pattern and practice of routinely delaying responses by months. But in his last opinion in the case, Conti had been largely satisfied that the problems had been cleared up, that the agency was making progress in clearing out its backlog, and that, therefore, there was no reason to penalize the agency for its previous behavior. Finding the agency had resolved the problems, Orrick noted that "the hard evidence provided about [the agency's] elimination of its backlog and the actual hiring of additional staff (as opposed to the mere promise or expectation of hiring additional staff), lead me to conclude that further injunctive relief is not warranted and that this case should, finally, come to its conclusion. It is apparent�"as Judge Conti found�"that NMFS was at one time routinely failing to obey FOIA's deadlines. It is also apparent that NMFS has made significant improvements and structural changes (in technology and staffing) that are to continue in the future. For purposes of these cases, that is enough."
Opinion/Order [81]Issues: Delay - Backlog reduction activities Opinion/Order [91] Opinion/Order [103] FOIA Project Annotation: A federal court in California has ruled that while two environmental organizations are entitled to attorney's fees for their suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service for records concerning water diversions by Stanford University that the groups contended harmed the Central California Coast steelhead, their request for $723,000 is excessive, primarily because its attorneys used an hourly rate based on complex litigation in the San Francisco area, rather than rates for FOIA or environmental litigation. Our Children's Earth Foundation and the Ecological Rights Foundation filed a number of requests with NMFS for records related to the Stanford claim. In two lawsuits, the court found NMFS had grossly violated FOIA time limits and ruled that the requesters could seek declaratory relief. The court eventually found that NMFS had conducted an adequate search and accepted most of its exemption claims. After finding the agency had taken steps to improve its backlog, the court decided the agency no longer had a pattern or practice of violating the time limits. The two organizations than filed a motion for $723,202 in attorney's fees, as well at $3,190 in costs. Judge William Orrick found the plaintiffs had succeeded in a number of their contentions and were entitled to attorney's fees for both cases. However, he found that the hourly rate was excessive. Orrick explained that "I do not find plaintiffs' focusâ€"on large scale, complex class action cases to be persuasive. That is not to say that FOIA cases cannot be complex. But the high rates awarded for complex class action cases can be explained in large part by the necessity in those cases for plaintiffs' counsel to incur significant cost outlays. . .and attorney time to review [documents]. . .which are not typically required in FOIA cases and were not required in these cases." He added that "plaintiffs shall recalculate their lodestar based on hourly rates that are consistent with the rates they requested in prior FOIA or environmental cases for the same time periods." Although NMFS argued that much of the time claimed was either for issues the plaintiffs lost or was redundant, Orrick accepted most of the plaintiffs' claims with occasional reductions. Orrick rejected compensation claims for document review, noting that "plaintiffs do not cite any case law allowing for recovery of time spent reviewing document productions where the review is necessary for a plaintiff to be able to challenge the adequacy of the search or the propriety of withholdings."
Issues: Litigation - Attorney's fees - Entitlement - Calculation of award | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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