Case Detail
| Case Title | PULLIAM v. UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY et al | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| District | District of Columbia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City | Washington, DC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Number | 1:2015cv01405 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Filed | 2015-08-28 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date Closed | 2018-06-14 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Judge | Judge Amy Berman Jackson | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plaintiff | RAYMOND C. PULLIAM | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Case Description | Raymond Pulliam submitted FOIA requests to the EPA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Justice, for records concerning toxic contamination at the former Fort McClellan Army Base. All three agencies acknowledged receipt of the requests. Neither the EPA nor the Department of Defense had responded by the time Pulliam filed suit. The Justice Department told Pulliam it had no records. Pulliam appealed that decision, which was affirmed by the Office of Information Policy. Pulliam filed suit against all three agencies. Complaint issues: Failure to respond within statutory time limit, Litigation - Attorney's fees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defendant | UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Opinion/Order [22] FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Amy Berman Jackson has ruled that the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, and the EPA have failed to show that they conducted an adequate search for records of an investigation of toxic contamination at former Army base Fort McClellan. Raymond Pulliam's request to DOD asked for all correspondence related to the toxic contamination at Fort McClellan. After DOD told Pulliam his request was too broad, he narrowed the request to ask for "all correspondence to, from or carbon copied to Elizabeth King and Mary McVeigh." The agency interpreted the narrowed request to apply to email only. After deciding its first search was insufficient, DOD conducted a second search, which included its Enterprise IT Services Directorate. That search located 57 pages, which were redacted under Exemption 6 (invasion of privacy) and disclosed to Pulliam. Pulliam's requests to the EPA and DOJ asked for investigations of the complaint filed by Heather White against former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and DOJ Senior Counsel William Weinischke. Both agencies searched their Offices of the Inspector General and found no records. Jackson faulted all three searches. She found DOD had improperly narrowed Pulliam's request to emails. She pointed out that "here, nothing in plaintiff's 'narrowed request suggests any intent to restrict the scope of his request' to email only The request contained clear instructions to search for other types of documents and the agency had an obligation 'to construe the FOIA request liberally.' At the very least, the record leaves substantial doubt as to the sufficiency of the search in that certain materials may have been overlooked despite plaintiff's well-defined request." Since Pulliam had not challenged the agency's redactions, Jackson found they were appropriate. The EPA searched the OIG Office of Investigation and its OIG Immediate Office. Jackson indicated that the searches were insufficient, noting that, while the agency searched certain databases, its affidavit "fails to indicate that the searches were conducted for the broader category of records that plaintiff requested. For instance, the declaration does not explain why a search was not conducted in the Inspector General's email or electronic files when the request sought all documentation related to the complaint filed by Heather White. And none of the search terms even included Heather White's name or position." The DOJ's OIG had searched its database using the terms "Todd Whitman" and "William A. Weinischke." Jackson observed that this was insufficient because it would not have picked up variants of the names and "the use of just these two names demonstrates that [the OIG staffer who conducted the search] did not understand the scope of plaintiff's request, which sought all documents relating to the complaint filed by Heather White."
Opinion/Order [31]Issues: Adequacy - Search FOIA Project Annotation: Judge Amy Berman Jackson has ruled that, with one exception, the EPA has now shown that it conducted an adequate search for records concerning the investigation into toxic contamination at former Army Base Fort McClellan, but both the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice have still failed to show that their searches were sufficient. Because DOD's explanations of its further search for electronic records was inadequate, Jackson granted Raymond Pulliam limited discovery. Jackson also approved the EPA's exemption and segregability claims. In a prior ruling in 2017, Jackson found that none of the agencies has supported their search and exemption claims in response to Pulliam's FOIA requests and ordered all three agencies to conduct further searches and provide better justifications for their searches and exemption claims. Pulliam's request to DOD was for all correspondence received by Elizabeth King or Mary McVeigh. Jackson previously faulted DOD for only searching for emails. This time, the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs told the FOIA Office that any correspondence involving King or McVeigh would only be stored electronically. The Office of Environment, Safety and Occupational Health and the Office of Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics told the FOIA Office they had no paper records for the relevant time frame of Pulliam's request. Jackson found these explanations insufficient, noting that DOD "never argued in its papers that the search included electronic files other than emails." As a result, she granted Pulliam's request "to take a limited telephonic disposition of a DOD witness that is no more than ninety minutes in length." As to the search for paper records, Jackson noted that DOD's affidavit "fails to provide the 'rationale for searching certain locations and not others,' and [it] does not describe how the [offices] were actually searched. Therefore, [the affidavit's] description of a search for paper records is too cursory to enable the Court to determine whether the search was adequate." Jackson had ordered a further search of the EPA's OIG Office of Investigations. Pulliam complained that the agency's search of its outgoing correspondence files had failed to turn up any records for the period of his request. But Jackson pointed out that "the fact that agency personnel did not have records that are more than ten years old on hand does not mean they did not comply with FOIA. [The agency's] explanation of the 'Outgoing Correspondence' files is sufficient to satisfy the Court that EPA conducted an adequate search." Jackson also agreed that the agency's search of the OIG Immediate Office was sufficient. Pulliam challenged the agency's decision to limit its email search to the email accounts of three staffers most likely to have responsive records. Jackson pointed out that "if further investigative steps had been taken by one of the three named individuals, those notes would have turned up in one of the searches that had already been conducted and that produced no responsive records. So [the agency] has sufficiently explained why specified record systems did not have to be searched again." However, Jackson found that the agency had failed to "provide any description of how the search [of one office] was actually conducted" and told the agency to clarify that issue. Jackson had previously found the search conducted by the OIG at the Department of Justice was insufficient because it did not include the names of several individuals. Finding DOJ's search was still inadequate, Jackson indicated that "as illustrated by the list of search terms used by EPA, terms exist that could have been used in a supplemental [database] search and a search of the audit and inspection records."
Issues: Search - Reasonableness of search, Search - Detailed description of search, Litigation - Discovery | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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