Rodriguez v. DOD, No. 14-0101, 2017 WL 650057 (D.D.C. Feb. 15, 2017) (Jackson, J.)

Rodriguez v. DOD, No. 14-0101, 2017 WL 650057 (D.D.C. Feb. 15, 2017) (Jackson, J.)

Re: Request for records concerning plaintiff's petition to Army Board for Correction of Military Records for relief under Military Whistleblower Protection Act and subsequent appeal of Board's determination

Disposition: Denying defendant's motion for summary judgment; granting in part and denying in part plaintiff's cross-motion for summary judgment

• Litigation Considerations, Adequacy of Search: "[The] Court concludes that DOD has failed to demonstrate that it conducted an adequate search for records in response to Plaintiff's two FOIA requests, and thus, the agency's search must be redone." First, the court finds that "DOD has provided a host of reasons for searching for responsive records within [its] Office of Legal Policy[.]" "What the agency has not done, however, is explain clearly why its search was limited to the Office of Legal Policy, when the FOIA requests at issue plainly encompassed records that could have been located in other subdivisions of DOD." The court notes that "DOD's primary response to this line of analysis is the fact that [plaintiff] penned an email to DOD regarding aspects of his initial FOIA request . . . and that this email could be interpreted as narrowing the scope of the documents he was requesting[,]" however, the court finds that "there is no indication that [plaintiff] was addressing the scope of the records requested, much less narrowing his initial document request." Second, the court finds that, "[e]ven if one accepts the agency's contention that it was reasonable to limit its search to the Office of Legal [Policy], DOD's description of the search methods it utilized falls substantially short of demonstrating that the agency conducted an adequate search within that location." The court relates that "[defendant's] affidavit describes a FOIA search methodology that was far from well-coordinated." "Among the many defects is the fact that [defendant] apparently failed to do a fresh, comprehensive search for records upon receipt of [plaintiff's] FOIA letters, and instead conducted myriad 'mini' quests related to different aspects of the records at issue in [plaintiff's] case over an extended period of time." "FOIA clearly contemplates that an agency will undertake a focused search for records in response to a particular request for documents, . . . but the affidavit here indicates that [defendant] primarily cobbled together the results of various document reviews that [it] had previously undertaken (by request) in a different context." The court also finds that defendant "omits [certain] search terms that [it] purportedly used[,]" defendant "fails to divulge the approach that [defendant] used to conduct manual searches of the physical files[,]" and "the search terms [defendant] employed were not reasonably calculated to uncover all responsive documents."