Conflict Kinetics, LLC v. Program Exec. Off., No. 25-00125, 2025 WL 1334052 (E.D. Va. May 6, 2025) (Nachmanoff, J.)

Conflict Kinetics, LLC v. Program Exec. Off., No. 25-00125, 2025 WL 1334052 (E.D. Va. May 6, 2025) (Nachmanoff, J.)

Re: Request for records concerning specific contract

Disposition:  Granting in part and denying in part defendant’s partial motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction

• Litigation Considerations, Mootness and Other grounds for Dismissal:  First, the court finds that “[b]ecause the only failure alleged in Count I of Plaintiff’s Complaint is Defendant’s ‘fail[ure] to respond’ to Plaintiff’s request, and Defendant has now issued a final response, [the] Court now lacks jurisdiction over that Count.”
  
  However, regarding Count II, the court relates that “[plaintiff] disagrees with Defendant’s assertion of FOIA exemptions 3, 4, and 5 in withholding the responsive emails that it discovered in its search.” “Whether such withholding was justified or not – the subject of Count II – is not an issue of this Court’s jurisdiction, but one to be decided on the merits.”  “[T]he only question before the Court is whether Defendant has shown that Count III is ‘moot because Defendant has issued its final decision on Plaintiff’s FOIA request.’”  “Because Plaintiff alleges the wrongful withholding of documents and Defendant, by its own admission, has not turned over a single document, Plaintiff’s claim in Count III cannot possibly be moot.”