Lacy v. U.S. Dep’t of State, No. 22-1065, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78438 (C.D. Cal. May 3, 2023) (Carter, J.)

Lacy v. U.S. Dep’t of State, No. 22-1065, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78438 (C.D. Cal. May 3, 2023) (Carter, J.)

Re:  Three requests for records concerning “‘Hunter Biden and his associates’ Ukraine corruption inquiry, primarily concerning Energy Corporation Burisma’”

Disposition:  Granting in part plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment; granting in part defendant’s motion for summary judgment; ordering in camera inspection

• Litigation Considerations, Relief & Procedural Requirements, Time Limits:  “Having reviewed the appropriateness of declaratory relief, the court concludes that based on the record in this case, Plaintiffs are entitled to declaratory relief.”  “The Department of State violated FOIA by failing to timely respond to Plaintiffs’ three FOIA requests.”  “None of the State Department’s determinations were within a timeframe considered ‘prompt’ by any ordinary understanding of the word.”  “The statute places the burden on the agency, not the FOIA requester, to justify delays in processing.”  “The State Department here does not address Plaintiffs’ argument regarding timeliness in opposition.”  “More troubling is Defendant’s failure, to date, to explain the delay.”  “Even after multiple rounds of briefing and a motion hearing, the State Department offers no credible evidence to support an argument that disclosure within the statutory time period was ‘not practicable’ so as to justify the delay.”
   
• Procedural Requirements, Searching for Responsive Records:  “[T]he Court grants judgment in favor of Defendants on the adequacy of its search.”  First, the court finds that “[t]he State Department’s FOIA search methodology is described in its first agency affidavit.”  “The affidavit details how FOIA requests are received; to whom they are assigned; how the search process is initiated; how the parameters are determined; and why certain databases, and not others, are determined to contain responsive documents.”  “But although the declaration was reasonably detailed, the extent to which the process described in the first affidavit applies to Plaintiffs’ three FOIA requests remains unclear.”  “Notwithstanding the discrepancies in the record, the parties only dispute the adequacy of the searches as they pertain to the search terms.”  “As such, the Court’s analysis focuses on this piece.”  “As written, Plaintiffs’ requests all seek records that ‘reference, and/or include’ specific terms.”  “Each term was subsequently identified and placed . . . in quotation marks.”  “Defendant’s initial searches, which turned up no responsive documents, adhered to the terms as provided.”  “The question is whether the agency’s limiting of the searches – to the terms delineated in the FOIA requests – constituted a reasonable effort by the agency to locate the records that Plaintiffs sought.”  “Though the question of the adequacy of the search terms is a close call, the Court concludes that the initial searches were reasonable.”  “Plaintiffs’ three FOIA requests each seek records that ‘reference and/or include’ specific ‘terms,’ and then proceed to identify those terms.”  “The State Department accordingly searched for records that, per Plaintiffs’ requests, ‘include and/or reference’ those terms.”  “Where the FOIA requests are ‘not broadly drawn’ and make a more ‘specific inquiry,’ the agency’s decision to limit its search to the four corners of the request is reasonable.”  “In reaching this determination, the Court does not suggest that an agency’s rigid adherence to the letter of the FOIA request will always be reasonable; in fact, a search for phrases verbatim is often ‘doomed to return limited results.’”  “But here, the agency’s decision not to go beyond the terms prescribed by Plaintiffs does not render its search unreasonable.”
   
• Litigation Considerations, In Camera Inspection:  “[T]he Court finds in camera inspection of the documents appropriate ‘to make a responsible de novo determination on the [applicability of Exemption 5 and Exemption 6].’”  “[T]he Court is not satisfied that the descriptions of the withheld information are accurate.”