Torres v. DOJ, No. 21-8427, 2022 WL 294865 (S.D.N.Y Feb. 1, 2022) (Swain, C.J.)

Torres v. DOJ, No. 21-8427, 2022 WL 294865 (S.D.N.Y Feb. 1, 2022) (Swain, C.J.)

Re:  Requests for records from Department of Justice

Disposition:  Dismissing plaintiff's complaint

• Litigation Considerations, Jurisdiction:  "Plaintiff's FOIA claims suffer numerous defects."  "First, his FOIA requests do not reasonably describe the records of interest." "Plaintiff provides several different versions of his requests, and it appears from the DOJ OIG's response in its August 6, 2021 letter – which Plaintiff treats as the denial of his FOIA requests – that the agency did not understand his inquiry to be a FOIA request."  "Next, Plaintiff's extremely broad requests do not seek records that a DOJ employee can locate with a reasonable amount of effort."  "Moreover, a response to some versions of Plaintiff's requests would require investigation into records outside the agency."  "In addition to these defects in Plaintiff's FOIA requests, Plaintiff does not show that he has exhausted his administrative remedies."  "Plaintiff alleges that he filed two FOIA requests on April 6, 2021, and that he filed two appeals in August 2021, but at least one of the appeals is from a FOIA request with a number that does not correspond to the initial April 2021 FOIA request that he filed."  "Plaintiff's allegations thus do not provide adequate information about which request he appealed."  "For all of these reasons, Plaintiff's second amended complaint does not plead facts showing that the DOJ improperly withheld agency records."
   
• Litigation Considerations, Pleadings: "District courts generally grant a pro se plaintiff leave to amend a complaint to cure its defects, but leave to amend may be denied if the plaintiff has already been given an opportunity to amend but has failed to cure the complaint's deficiencies."  "Here, Plaintiff has already had two opportunities to amend his complaint to cure its defects."  "Because the defects in Plaintiff's amended complaint cannot be cured with a further amendment, the Court declines to grant Plaintiff another opportunity to amend."