TC Co. v. U.S. Forest Serv., No. 23-0514, 2024 WL 5263697 (D.N.M. Dec. 31, 2024) (Martinez, Mag. J.)
Date
TC Co. v. U.S. Forest Serv., No. 23-0514, 2024 WL 5263697 (D.N.M. Dec. 31, 2024) (Martinez, Mag. J.)
Re: Request for records concerning Cerro Pelado Fire
Disposition: Granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment; denying plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment
- Litigation Considerations, Mootness and Other Grounds for Dismissal: The court relates that “[defendant] failed to make a determination on [plaintiff’s] appeal within the statutory 20-day period for doing so.” “Nor did the USFS avail itself of the statutory 10-day extension when ‘unusual circumstances’ are present.” “Accordingly, [plaintiff] constructively exhausted its administrative remedies for its first and second FOIA requests.” “[Defendant] contends, however, that the filing of the lawsuit ‘negat[es] the need to complete the appeal.’” The court finds that, “[h]ere, while [plaintiff] filed this action before the [defendant’s] production of responsive documents, now that the USFS has produced documents it believes to be fully responsive to [plaintiff’s] requests, [plaintiff’s] timeliness claim is moot.”
- Litigation Considerations, Jurisdiction & Exhaustion of Administrative Remedies: The court finds that “[plaintiff] is attempting to piggyback its third, fourth, and fifth FOIA requests – all submitted after filing an appeal in this Court – into this litigation.” “[Plaintiff] filed this action on June 14, 2023.” “[Plaintiff] then submitted a third FOIA request two months later on August 9, 2023, . . . a fourth FOIA request on January 2, 2024, . . . and a fifth FOIA request on March 7, 2024.” “Importantly, while [plaintiff] did appeal its third FOIA request . . . it never appealed its fourth or fifth FOIA requests.” “Thus, the Court lacks jurisdiction to consider [plaintiff’s] third FOIA request because it appealed the [defendant’s] response after the instant litigation had already commenced.” “As to [plaintiff’s] fourth and fifth FOIA requests, it failed to appeal these requests and thus never exhausted its administrative remedies.” “For these reasons, the Court will not consider [plaintiff’s] third, fourth, and fifth FOIA requests, nor its purported undisputed material facts related to those requests.”
- Litigation Considerations, Declarations: Responding to plaintiff’s argument, “[t]he Court finds [defendant’s] declarations offer sufficient detail about the scope of the search to establish the [defendant’s] good faith effort to comply with the request.”
- Litigation Considerations, Adequacy of Search; Procedural Requirements, Searching for Responsive Records: The court finds that “[defendant] instructed [its] Law Enforcement and Santa Fe National Forest Staff to search for the records requested by [plaintiff].” “The declarations . . . fully describe the searches conducted and their results, as well as the follow-up searches conducted after [plaintiff] questioned the adequacy of the initial searches.” “These declarations are ‘sufficiently detailed and non-conclusory and demonstrate that the search method was reasonably conducted to uncover all relevant documents.’” “Because it is well-settled that an agency’s FOIA search need not be perfect or exhaustive, . . . the Court finds that the [defendant’s] declarations fully describe the [defendant’s] search efforts.” “Thus, the Court concludes that the undisputed material facts establish that [defendant] met its reasonable search obligations under FOIA.”
“As to [plaintiff’s] second argument (semantic games), it cites no facts to question the good faith of the [defendant’s] search or assertions.” “For example, [plaintiff] finds fault with [defendant] conducting its search based, in part, on the ‘text of the request.’” “But [plaintiff’s] second FOIA request sought records relating to all burn plans and modifications to burn plans, prescribed burn accomplishments (location and acreage), daily logs of all prescribed burn operations, and weather observations for the area(s) of the prescribed burn operations for the Cerro Pelado Fire.” “Consequently, it was entirely appropriate for [defendant] to respond that no such records existed because the [defendant] considers the Cerro Pelado Fire a wildfire, where no prescribed burning occurred.” “And while daily logs do exist for the wildfire known as the Cerro Pelado Fire, the specific language that [plaintiff] used in its FOIA request never requested those documents.” “Accordingly, the Court finds that it was not unreasonable for [defendant] to match the scope of their search to the specific words of the request.”
Court Decision Topic(s)
District Court opinions
Litigation Considerations, Adequacy of Search
Litigation Considerations, Exhaustion of Administrative Remedies
Litigation Considerations, Jurisdiction
Litigation Considerations, Mootness and Other Grounds for Dismissal
Litigation Considerations, Vaughn Index/Declarations
Procedural Requirements, Searching for Responsive Records
Updated January 31, 2025