JUDICIAL WATCH, INC., APPELLANT v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, APPELLEE
No. 16-5339
United States Court of Appeals FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued September 15, 2017 Decided July 17, 2018
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 1:15-cv-01983)
Lauren M. Burke argued the cause and filed the briefs for appellant. Paul J. Orfanedes entered an appearance.
Sarah Carroll, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellee. With her on the brief was Mark B. Stern, Attorney.
Before: ROGERS, SRINIVASAN, and PILLARD, Circuit Judges.
Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD.
Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN.
ROGERS, Circuit Judge: For years, Judicial Watch has monitored expenditures of U.S. Government funds on “VIP” travel by submitting requests for records pursuant to the
In November 2015, Judicial Watch was forced again to file a lawsuit when the Secret Service failed to make available records in response to nineteen travel-related FOIA requests submitted over a thirteen-month
The only question now before the court is whether the complaint adequately alleged a “policy or practice” claim under FOIA. The district court ruled that Judicial Watch had failed to plead sufficiently egregious facts and granted judgment on the pleadings pursuant to
I.
The
First, an agency “shall determine” within twenty business days (one month) of receiving a FOIA request “whether to comply with such request,” and “shall immediately notify the person making such request of such determination and the reasons therefor.”
“unusual circumstances,” the agency may extend the determination deadline by ten business days (two weeks) upon explaining the circumstances to the requester.
To promote “efficient and appropriate compliance” with FOIA,
Each agency also “shall designate” a Chief FOIA Officer,
understanding of the status of requests, and assisting in the resolution of disputes.”
Second, FOIA provides procedural protections for a member of the public requesting records from an agency. Upon a denial of a request, the requester may seek reconsideration by the head of the agency.
In sum, FOIA “reflect[s] ‘a general philosophy of full agency disclosure unless information is exempted under clearly delineated statutory language.‘” Dep‘t of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 360-61 (1976) (quoting S. REP. No. 813, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 3 (1965)). It “stand[s] in sharp relief against” the prior procedures under the
directives to agencies in support of the overarching mandate to make records “promptly available,”
The instant appeal brings into sharp focus the meaning of FOIA‘s mandate that agencies “shall” make requested records “promptly available” under this two-part scheme. Between July 2014 and August 2015, Judicial Watch submitted nineteen FOIA requests to the Secret Service for records on public expenditures for travel by President Obama and the First Lady, Vice President Biden, and former President Carter. Upon acknowledging receipt of and assigning tracking numbers to 17 of the 19 requests, the Secret Service took no further action and stood mute. In November 2015 - between three and eighteen months after the Secret Service had received Judicial Watch‘s records requests - Judicial Watch filed suit. Attached to its complaint was a chart showing as to each request that the Secret Service1 had not made any of the requested records available
nor advised Judicial Watch whether any records were exempt from disclosure. Citing the five lawsuits it had filed against the Secret Service in similar circumstances to obtain similar records, Judicial Watch alleged that “[t]he Secret Service regularly fails to issue determinations . . . within the time period required by FOIA, causing [Judicial Watch] to bring suit in order to obtain the requested records.” Compl. ¶¶ 7-8, 13 (emphasis added). The repeated, prolonged, and unexplained delays have prevented Judicial Watch from gathering complete records for its reports to the public on federally funded VIP travel. See id. ¶ 16. Further, Judicial Watch “intends to continue submitting identical or nearly identical travel-related FOIA requests as part of its on-going efforts to educate and inform the public about ‘what their government is up to’ and promote transparency, integrity, and accountability in government and fidelity to the rule of law.” Id. ¶ 17.
Judicial Watch‘s complaint was in two counts. Count I alleged the Secret Service is “violating FOIA by failing to conduct a search reasonably calculated to uncover all records responsive to each . . . request[] and is unlawfully withholding records responsive to each request.” Id. ¶¶ 19-20. As relief it sought an order directing the Secret Service to search and produce the non-exempt records “by a date certain.” Id. at 6-7. Count II alleged that the Secret Service, “[o]n information and belief . . . has a policy and practice of violating FOIA‘s procedural requirements” by “regularly failing or refusing to produce requested records or otherwise demonstrate that [they] are exempt from production within the time period required by FOIA or at least within a reasonable period of time,” id. ¶ 22, causing it irreparable harm, id. ¶ 23. It sought in relief an order enjoining the Secret Service from adhering to its policy or practice. Id. at 7.
In answering the complaint, the Secret Service acknowledged that it had not made “a final response to all of [Judicial Watch‘s] FOIA requests,” Answer ¶ 14, and otherwise denied violating FOIA. It also moved for judgment on the pleadings pursuant to Rule 12(c) and to dismiss Count II with prejudice. In an accompanying memorandum, the Secret Service stated that it would, in accord with the district court‘s scheduling order, produce all non-exempt records by March 18, 2016. Within four months of the filing of the complaint,
The district court dismissed Count I as moot once the Secret Service produced the requested records. It also granted the Rule 12(c) motion for judgment on Count II, ruling that Judicial Watch had “failed to allege sufficient facts” establishing that the Secret Service had “adopted, endorsed, or implemented some policy or practice that constitutes an ongoing failure to abide by the terms of FOIA.” Judicial Watch
v. Dep‘t of Homeland Security, 211 F. Supp. 3d 143, 146-47 (D.C. Sept. 29, 2016) (quoting Muttitt v. Dep‘t of State, 926 F. Supp. 2d 284, 293 (D.D.C. Mar. 4, 2013)). In particular, the district court stated that Judicial Watch “points to no fact or statement to establish why requests were delayed or how the delays were the result of an either formal or informal policy or practice to violate FOIA‘s requirements, rather than inevitable but unintended delay attributable to a lack of resources.” Id. at 146. It sought no explanation from the Secret Service but speculated the delays were likely due to a lack of resources.
Judicial Watch appeals the Rule 12(c) judgment on Count II. Our review is de novo, accepting as true, as we must, the factual allegations in the complaint. Mpoy v. Rhee, 758 F.3d 285, 287 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (citing Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678-79 (2009)).
II.
FOIA lawsuits generally become moot once an agency has made available requested non-exempt records, whether voluntarily or after court order. See Perry v. Block, 684 F.2d 121, 125 (D.C. Cir. 1982) (citations omitted). This court has recognized an exception to mootness where an agency has a “policy or practice” that “will impair the party‘s lawful access to information in the future.” Payne Enterprises, Inc. v. United States, 837 F.2d 486, 491 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (citing Better Gov‘t Ass‘n v. Dep‘t of State, 780 F.2d 86, 90-92 (D.C. Cir. 1986)). The First Circuit had recognized a similar exception in Lybarger v. Cardwell, 577 F.2d 764, 767 (1st Cir. 1978), and the Ninth Circuit has followed suit, see Hajro v. U.S. Citizenship & Immigr. Servs., 811 F.3d 1086, 1103 (9th Cir. 2015). FOIA authorizes a court not only to “order the production of any agency records improperly withheld,” but also to “enjoin the agency from withholding agency records.”
In this circuit it is settled law that informal agency conduct resulting in long delays in making requested non-exempt
The fact that the practice at issue is informal, rather than crystalized in regulation or an official statement of policy, is irrelevant to determining whether a challenge to that policy or practice is moot. Courts have long recognized that there “may very well be circumstances in which prolonged delay in making information available or unacceptably onerous opportunities for viewing disclosed information require judicial intervention.” So long as an agency‘s refusal to supply information evidences a policy or practice of delayed disclosure or some other failure to abide by the terms of the FOIA, and not merely isolated mistakes by agency officials, a party‘s challenge to the policy or practice cannot be mooted
by the release of the specific documents that prompted the suit.
Id. at 491 (quoting Lybarger, 577 F.2d at 767).
Upon concluding that Payne‘s case was not moot, id. at 494, the court also concluded that the agency‘s “repeated delays” in making requested records available were “wholly unjustified” and “clear violations” of FOIA, id. at 488-89. “[T]hat Payne eventually obtained the information it sought provides scant comfort when stale information is of little value yet more costly than fresh information ought to be.” Id. at 494. The court endorsed the interpretation of FOIA that:
Congress did not intend for . . . agenc[ies] to use FOIA offensively to hinder the release of non-exempt documents. The appellants [i.e., the requesting parties] have fully complied with the administrative scheme. It was the [agency]‘s abuse of this scheme that forced the appellants to bring several lawsuits to obtain release of the documents. . . . These unreasonable delays in disclosing non-exempt documents violate the intent and purpose of the FOIA, and the courts have a duty to prevent these abuses.
Id. (quoting Long v. IRS, 693 F.2d 907, 910 (9th Cir. 1982)). In remanding the case to afford Payne declaratory relief, this court instructed the district court to “consider the propriety of injunctive relief,” id. at 494-95, after “evaluat[ing] the likelihood that the Air Force will return to its illicit practice of delay in the absence of an injunction,” id. at 495.
The court applied Payne in Newport Aeronautical Sales v. Dep‘t of Air Force, 684 F.3d 160 (D.C. Cir. 2012). There, the agency had repeatedly invoked a FOIA exemption to deny
requests for technical data, forcing a government contractor to request the records pursuant to the agency‘s more onerous disclosure scheme, which required submission of information that the contractor did not have due to the nature of its business. Id. at 162-63. The contractor sued, challenging the permissibility of the agency‘s interpretation of FOIA. This court held that the Air Force‘s belated disclosure of requested records after the contractor filed suit did not moot the policy or practice claim because the Air Force had persisted in its challenged
Judicial Watch does not allege agency misconduct in invoking FOIA exemptions as occurred in Payne or good-faith agency error in interpreting a FOIA exemption as occurred in Newport. Nor does Judicial Watch point to any formal policy or other substantive response by the Secret Service explaining its failures to “promptly” produce requested non-exempt records. Instead, Judicial Watch‘s policy or practice claim is based on the Secret Service‘s repeated, unexplained, and “prolonged delay in making information available.” Payne, 837 F.2d at 491. It alleges that the Secret Service “regularly fails to issue determinations in response to [Judicial Watch‘s] travel-related FOIA requests within the time period required by FOIA, causing [Judicial Watch] to bring suit in order to obtain the requested records.” Compl. ¶ 7 (emphasis added). It points to the five lawsuits2 it had been forced to file when the Secret Service had previously employed the same non-responsive conduct: acknowledge receipt of the FOIA requests and assign
them tracking numbers, remain mute until Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit, and only then undertake to make requested non-exempt records available, thereby mooting the litigation and escaping judicial review of its failures to comply with FOIA‘s procedural requirements.
Now seeking injunctive relief in view of the Secret Service‘s alleged flouting of the statutory scheme, Judicial Watch‘s complaint posits that the Secret Service has an informal practice, harmful to Judicial Watch‘s mission and work, of repeatedly withholding “nearly identical” records, without explanation, for unreasonable periods of time. Id. ¶¶ 7-9, 13-14, 22. Pointing to the FOIA requests underlying this lawsuit, Judicial Watch shows that the Secret Service made no determinations, timely or otherwise, whether it would make any of the records available. For example, on August 8, the Secret Service acknowledged receipt of the requests of July 21 and 28, 2014, for travel expenditures for President Obama‘s trips to New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, but had no further communication with Judicial Watch on these requests, or on twelve other requests. For three requests, the Secret Service provided a communication of an unidentified nature, but did not produce any requested records. Two requests were ignored entirely.
The Secret Service, in moving for judgment pursuant to Rule 12(c), has treated its non-responsiveness to Judicial Watch‘s requests as consistent with FOIA: When an agency fails “promptly” to produce requested non-exempt records or invoke an exemption within statutory timetables, the requesting party may file a lawsuit without exhausting the administrative remedy. See
establish a FOIA violation and consequently cannot be the basis for a policy or practice claim. See Appellee Br. 17-19. In other words, the Secret Service concludes the text of FOIA allows for this interpretation because even where an agency repeatedly fails to conform to FOIA‘s procedural
This interpretation is untenable for any number of reasons. Most significantly, “[t]he basic purpose of FOIA is to ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society, needed to check against corruption and to hold the governor accountable to the governed.” NLRB v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U.S. 214, 242 (1978); see Nat‘l Archives & Records Admin. v. Favish, 541 U.S. 157, 171-72 (2004). Non-exempt records are to be made “promptly available,”
possibly unwilling official hands,” Mink, 410 U.S. at 80, Congress intended an agency‘s repeated flaunting of FOIA‘s pre-litigation procedural requirements to be excused once the requested records are made available upon being sued. That interpretation is inconsistent with Congress‘s remedial purpose in enacting FOIA to enhance government transparency subject to limited statutory exemptions, using a two-part scheme that imposed specific requirements on federal agencies. Our precedent on policy or practice claims disposes of any suggestion that Congress intended the repeated filing of lawsuits to be a practical requirement for obtaining records from an agency flaunting the statute. See Payne, 837 F.2d at 494 (citing Long, 693 F.2d at 910). Filing a lawsuit hardly ensures “prompt[] availab[ility],”
Therefore, a plaintiff states a plausible policy or practice claim under Payne by alleging prolonged, unexplained delays in producing non-exempt records that could signal the agency has a policy or practice of ignoring FOIA‘s requirements. As in Payne, the plaintiff must allege a pattern of prolonged delay amounting to a persistent failure to adhere to FOIA‘s requirements and that the pattern of delay will interfere with its right under FOIA to promptly obtain non-exempt records from the agency in the future. Judicial Watch‘s complaint meets these requirements. Given the Secret Service‘s repeated, prolonged, and as yet unexplained delays in making requested non-exempt records available, it cannot be gainsaid that Judicial Watch alleges sufficient facts under
repeatedly standing mute over a prolonged period of time and using Judicial Watch‘s filing of a lawsuit as an organizing tool for setting its response priorities. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678; Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007).
The conclusion that such “unreasonable delay in disclosing non-exempt documents” is an “abuse of [FOIA‘s] scheme” follows ineluctably from the recognition that “Congress did not intend for the [agency] to use the FOIA offensively to hinder the release of non-exempt documents so as to force[] the appellant[] to bring several lawsuits to obtain release of the documents.” Payne, 837 F.2d at 494 (quoting Long, 693 F.2d at 910). And it is long established in this circuit that an agency‘s compliance with FOIA depends upon its “good faith effort and due diligence to comply with all lawful demands [for records] . . . in as short a time as is possible.” Open America v. Watergate Special Prosecution Force, 547 F.2d 605, 616 (D.C. Cir. 1976). Congress reinforced the importance of FOIA‘s timetables and its overarching mandate of prompt availability when it amended FOIA in 1974. Responding to agencies’ concerns about the high volume of requests and lack of resources, Congress allowed agencies only ten additional days to respond where there were “unusual circumstances.” See
[T]he 1974 Amendments were deliberately drafted to force increased expedition in the handling of FOIA requests: “[E]xcessive delay by the agency in its response is often tantamount to denial. It is the intent of this bill that the affected agencies be required to respond to inquiries and administrative appeals within specific time limits.” H. REP. No. 93-876, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. (1974). . . . The Congress even rejected a 30-
day extension provision, narrowly drafted to take account of the special exigencies facing agencies.
Open America, 547 F.2d at 617 (Leventhal, J., concurring in the result) (emphasis added). Much as Congress has done in adopting “technology-forcing” provisions in other contexts, see, e.g., Union Elec. Co v. EPA, 427 U.S. 246, 256-57 (1976), Congress contemplated that agencies would improve their records management systems to ensure requested records are made “promptly available,”
The district court, however, conceived the issue of sufficiency of pleading differently. First, it treated Payne and Newport as establishing a floor for a policy or practice claim. In contrast with what it described as the “egregious, intentional agency conduct” in Payne and Newport, the district court ruled that Judicial Watch had alleged “mere delay.” Judicial Watch, 211 F. Supp. 3d at 147. “At best, Judicial Watch‘s alleged facts are merely consistent with a policy or practice claim.” Id.; see id. at 145 (citing Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678). This court did not require egregious agency action to state a policy or practice claim. Rather, the court stated in Payne that even beyond a “refusal to supply information,” an agency may engage in “some other failure to abide by the terms
obligations mandated by Congress and failure to take advantage of provisions allowing additional time to respond.
Second, the district court shifted to the requesting party the burden that FOIA places on the agency to explain its delay in making requested records available. See, e.g.,
The history of the Secret Service‘s conduct in response to Judicial Watch‘s FOIA requests, as alleged in the complaint, wherein Judicial Watch has been forced to file six lawsuits to obtain requested non-exempt records - all relating to the same subject matter - sufficed to state a plausible claim that the agency‘s practice was to utilize delay to flaunt FOIA‘s
procedural requirements, and that filing a lawsuit to obtain requested records was an empty gesture in terms of preventing future prolonged delays, much less obtaining future relief, because the agency would moot the litigation and escape judicial review of its compliance with FOIA. The Secret Service‘s alleged practice of prolonged, repeated, and unexplained delay, if allowed to continue, would harm Judicial Watch‘s mission to inform the public about the costs of VIP travel by unlawfully interfering with its statutory right to “promptly” obtain non-exempt records upon request. See Newport, 684 F.3d at 163-64.
Of course, not all agency delay or other failure to comply with FOIA‘s procedural requirements will warrant judicial intervention, much less injunctive relief. FOIA‘s provisions for extensions of response time, where for example the agency shows “exceptional circumstances exist” upon “demonstrat[ing] reasonable progress in reducing the backlog of pending requests,”
Unexplained agency delay still requires the district court to determine whether the agency‘s conduct in failing to conform to FOIA‘s procedural requirements demonstrates a lack of due diligence and is so delinquent or recalcitrant as to warrant injunctive relief because ordinary remedies, such as a production order, see
inadequate to overcome an agency policy or practice. See Ctr. for the Study of Servs. v. Dep‘t of Health & Human Servs., 874 F.3d 287, 292 (D.C. Cir. 2017); Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. U.S. Dep‘t of Justice, 846 F.3d 1235, 1242, 1246 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (“CREW II“); Newport, 684 F.3d at 164; Payne, 837 F.2d at 491; Lybarger, 577 F.2d at 767. When injunctive relief is sought, “the necessary determination is that there exists some cognizable danger of recurrent violation, something more than the mere possibility which serves to keep the case alive.” U.S. v. W.T. Grant Co., 345 U.S. 629, 633 (1952). Factors to be “considered are the bona fides of the expressed intent to comply, the effectiveness of the discontinuance [of the violation] and, in some cases, the character of the past violations.” Id. In the FOIA context, “the court‘s prime consideration should be the effect on the public of disclosure or non-disclosure.” Long, 693 F.2d at 909 (citing W.T. Grant, 345 U.S. at 633). And as Congress‘s limited reaction in amending FOIA suggests, staffing shortages and work overload may not render injunctive relief inappropriate. See Open America, 547 F.2d at 616; id. at 617 (Leventhal, J., concurring in the result). The indication by government counsel during oral argument that an agency might permissibly use litigation as an organizing tool for responding to FOIA requests, see Oral Arg. 25:18-26:59, is not an encouraging sign.
Our dissenting colleague‘s interpretation of FOIA raises the question why Congress bothered to enact FOIA at all. After all, prior to FOIA, a person could request agency records and upon failing to obtain them seek relief in court, albeit an expensive and time-consuming process. Yet neither agency practices nor lawsuits under the prior statutory scheme resulted in transparency of government operations. The Supreme Court and this court have understood that Congress‘s purpose in enacting FOIA was to achieve greater transparency in support
of open government, and that to accomplish this goal it placed the burden on agencies to act in good faith and exercise due diligence to make records available as quickly as possible, or invoke an exemption, and to improve their records management systems to enable prompt responses without routine judicial involvement. Our colleague‘s interpretation would bypass Congress‘s decision about how this goal can best be achieved.
In doing so, our colleague concludes Judicial Watch‘s complaint fails to state a claim for relief based on a policy or practice. Diss. Op. 2, 7-8. He does this by reading the complaint narrowly despite the
Further, our colleague proceeds to address whether Judicial Watch could prevail beyond the
Accordingly, we reverse the
PILLARD, Circuit Judge, concurring:
I join the majority opinion in full. In view of the disagreement between my colleagues, I write separately to emphasize what I see as the alleged Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) violations, and to spell out how, because the complaint alleges a persistent “practice” of violating FOIA, the Secret Service‘s production of records in response to Judicial Watch‘s lawsuit did not render the claims moot.
Judicial Watch wants to keep the public informed of how much taxpayer money is spent on travel by the First Families and others who travel under Secret Service protection. FOIA is designed to make such a project easy and inexpensive. Under FOIA, information showing “what [the] government is up to,” EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. 73, 105 (1973) (Douglas, J., dissenting), is presumptively available for the asking—no lawyer needed—to any person at little or no cost. But it has not worked out that way for Judicial Watch. The organization has had to wait for many months, and to devote resources that would be unaffordable to most requesters to file half a dozen lawsuits, just to get this simple information.
Judicial Watch alleges a continuing practice of virtually complete passivity by the Secret Service in responding to the series of straightforward requests that Judicial Watch alleges it has made and plans to continue to make. In these circumstances, a complete but belated response does not moot the case. The statute “does not allow agencies to keep FOIA requests bottled up for months or years on end while avoiding any judicial oversight.” Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. FEC, 711 F.3d 180, 190 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (CREW). Because the pleadings show no statutorily adequate explanation for the agency‘s persistent practice of alleged delays in violation of FOIA, the district court retains jurisdiction over whatever further proceedings are needed to determine whether declaratory or injunctive relief is appropriate. On remand, the district court should call on the Secret Service either to bring its FOIA process into line with the statute, or to explain to the court‘s satisfaction that it has already done so.
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When a member of the public makes a request for government records, FOIA requires the agency to “determine within 20 days” what responsive records it has and can produce consistent with FOIA‘S exemptions,
There is no doubt that Congress intended FOIA‘s time limits to be mandatory. See Open America v. Watergate Special Prosecution Force, 547 F.2d 605, 617 (D.C. Cir. 1976) (Leventhal, J., concurring) (“Excessive delay by the agency in its response is often tantamount to denial. It is the intent of this bill that the affected agencies be required to respond to inquiries . . . within specific time limits.“) (quoting H.R. REP. No. 93-876, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. (1974)). Our dissenting colleague minimizes the importance of the 20-day deadline for
Regardless whether ignoring the 20-day deadline is alone actionable, there is no question that substantial delays can support cognizable FOIA claims: We have held that “unreasonable delays in disclosing non-exempt documents violate the intent and purpose of the FOIA, and the courts have a duty to prevent these abuses.” Payne Enters., Inc. v. United States, 837 F.2d 486, 494 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (quoting Long v. IRS, 693 F.2d 907, 910 (9th Cir. 1982)); cf. McGehee v. CIA, 697 F.2d 1095, 1110 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (holding that an agency‘s internal procedures for processing documents may violate FOIA where the “net effect” is “significant to increase the amount of time [the requester] must wait to obtain them“). Faced with information suggesting that “an agency‘s responses to a request for information have been tardy and grudging, courts should be sure they do not abdicate their own duty.” McGehee, 697 F.2d at 1114. Allegations of an agency‘s unexplained delay here, alleged failures for several months to respond to simple requests to make responsive, non-exempt records “promptly available“—suffice to state a FOIA claim.
When, as often happens, an agency voluntarily produces requested records during the course of a lawsuit, that production typically satisfies the requester and ends the case. But not always. Voluntary cessation of unlawful conduct moots a case, as a general matter, only “if subsequent events made it absolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur.” Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs., Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 189 (2000). Moreover, “[t]he heavy burden of persuading the court that the challenged conduct cannot reasonably be expected to start up again lies with the party asserting mootness.” Id. In the FOIA context, an ongoing agency “policy or practice” of unlawful nondisclosure may mean the voluntary release of responsive records “does not deprive the tribunal of power to hear and determine the case, i.e., does not make the case moot.” Payne, 837 F.2d at 490 (quoting United States v. W.T. Grant Co., 345 U.S. 629, 632 (1953); citing Cty. of L.A. v. Davis, 440 U.S. 625, 631 (1979)); see Newport Aeronautical Sales v. Dep‘t of Air Force, 684 F.3d 160, 163-64 (D.C. Cir. 2012); Hajro, 811 F.3d at 1103, 1106; Mayock v. Nelson, 938 F.2d 1006 (9th Cir. 1991). A plaintiff plausibly alleging that its plans to request similar agency records will be stymied by an ongoing practice of unjustified delays may be entitled to injunctive or declaratory relief.
The question here is whether Judicial Watch has adequately alleged such a practice. The answer is yes.
With allegations of 29 similar requests across six lawsuits met by unexplained months of waiting for the Secret Service to produce responsive records, the complaint makes out a consistent practice of delay in violation of FOIA. Even though the 20-day deadline had elapsed many times over, the Secret Service admits that it had not made the requisite “determinations.” See
At the pleading stage, we lack critical context about the alleged delays and so cannot simply assume and unquestioningly accept that they are justified. To be sure, what counts as prompt production varies “depending on the circumstances.” CREW, 711 F.3d at 188. But if we were to hold that the circumstances alleged here, without more, satisfied the Secret Service‘s statutory duties under FOIA, the roles Congress assigned the courts as the primary enforcer of FOIA and agencies as the proactive stewards of FOIA‘s implementation would be substantially undermined.
Consider the character of the requests themselves. The requested records are generally in the form of receipts—evidencing, for example, expenditures for flights,
hundreds of millions of people in the United States who travel each year for their work that employers collect and process travel expense information regularly; any adequately functioning organization should be able to produce travel expense information with dispatch. There is no suggestion that the requests at issue in this case involve any subtle relevance questions about where or how to search, or cumbersome inter-agency collaboration to identify what information is kept, and where it might be found. Cf. McGehee, 697 F.2d at 1098-99. The Secret Service presumably already keeps and electronically tracks government-paid travel expense information for any number of internal reasons. And, by now, Judicial Watch‘s repeated requests themselves may provide an additional reason for it to do so: FOIA obligates agencies to take initiative—even in the absence of a further request—to facilitate public access to commonly sought information, such as by publishing it in advance, see
The dissent, however, assumes the requests are “complex,” Diss. Op. 11, and finds their processing time reasonable in light of the average “complex” request processing times listed in a Secret Service FOIA report. See id. (citing U.S. Dep‘t of Homeland Sec., 2015 FOIA Report to the Attorney General of the United States 5, Table V.A. (Feb. 2016), https://go.usa.gov/xXQVvf). That FOIA report, however, was not incorporated in any pleading. It was not even mentioned in briefing. At the pleading stage, as the district court correctly recognized, Judicial Watch v. Dep‘t of Homeland Sec., 211 F. Supp. 3d 143, 145 n.1 (D.D.C. 2016), we confine our review to the allegations, see Banneker Ventures, LLC v. Graham, 798 F.3d 1119, 1133 (D.C. Cir. 2015). In any event, the FOIA report says nothing about how these requests compare with those the Secret Service itself denominated as “complex,” in terms of the difficulty and time needed to process them. We are here required to make the reasonable inference in Judicial Watch‘s favor that its VIP-travel expense requests are wholly straightforward; it is open to the agency on remand to seek to show otherwise.
In sum, Judicial Watch has plausibly alleged a persistent practice of delay that violates FOIA‘s mandate to make responsive records “promptly available.” See
Our dissenting colleague sees no allegations of delay that could violate FOIA. See Diss. Op. 12. His main point is that agencies cannot be expected to respond post haste to every one of the thousands of FOIA requests that agencies today receive. But to assume at the pleading stage that an agency faces hurdles and can offer rationales that were never pleaded or proved contravenes both
The statute places the burden on the agency, not the FOIA requester, to justify delays in processing. Once an agency has been sued in district court for improperly withholding records, “the burden is on the agency to sustain its action.”
A few additional points: The dissent contends that, by requiring agencies to issue reports on the number of delayed requests and to provide tracking numbers to requesters, FOIA expressly tolerates across-the-board, prolonged waits for production of nonexempt information. See Diss. Op. 3, 9. But nothing about FOIA‘s reporting and tracking mechanisms suggests they excuse violations of the statute‘s “determination” deadline or its expectation that, once a determination is made, a requester will be “immediately” informed and responsive records will be produced “promptly.” FOIA excuses slow processing of nonexempt information only when the agency has carried its burden to justify withholding records,
Recognizing that Judicial Watch has stated a policy or practice claim here imposes no new or untenable burdens on agencies. Our circuit has recognized the “policy or practice” doctrine for thirty years. See Newport Aeronautical Sales, 684 F.3d at 164 (recognizing that, “even though a party may have obtained relief as to a specific request under the FOIA, this will not moot a claim that an agency policy or practice will impair the party‘s lawful access to information in the future“) (emphasis in original) (citing Payne, 837 F.2d at 489). District courts, moreover, have many tools at their disposal to focus and streamline inquiry into whether the agency‘s production times are justified. See generally
In considering the propriety of injunctive or declaratory relief, the district courts should be mindful of their “duty to prevent . . . abuses” of FOIA. Payne, 837 F.2d at 494. They should assess whether an agency is acting with due diligence and making reasonable progress in reducing backlogs, including by availing itself of tools to improve its efficiency.
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Congress in FOIA expressed a national commitment to open government. A democratic society requires an informed citizenry—not only to check against corruption and to hold government accountable, but also to dispel misconceptions and fallacies that secrecy feeds. As widely emulated as it has been here and abroad, FOIA is not the only—or necessarily the best—way to make the workings of government as open as practicable to the people in whose name its officials wield power and resources. See generally David E. Pozen, Freedom of Information Beyond the Freedom of Information Act, 165 U. PA. L. REV. 1097 (2017). Nevertheless, as Congress enacted and we have applied it, FOIA supports Judicial Watch‘s “policy or practice” claim. I thus join the opinion of the court holding that the Secret Service did not defeat the district court‘s jurisdiction to consider whether equitable relief might still be warranted even though—after repeatedly failing for months to respond to simple requests—it provided the information in full after the lawsuit was filed.
SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge, dissenting: The Freedom of Information Act serves the important aim of promoting the timely release of requested government records. Ordinarily, when an agency completes its review of a request and releases responsive records during the pendency of a FOIA action, the case becomes moot. The case is not moot, however, if the agency has a general, ongoing policy or practice of violating FOIA. In that event, the court can enjoin the unlawful agency policy or practice going forward.
The complaint in this case claims that the Secret Service has a policy or practice of unlawfully withholding the release of requested records in violation of FOIA. The question we face is whether the complaint‘s allegations, if true, establish a policy or practice of violating FOIA. My colleagues conclude that the answer is yes. I respectfully disagree.
This case involves nineteen requests for records submitted to the Secret Service by Judicial Watch. The complaint‘s salient allegations are that (i) the agency failed to determine whether it would produce the requested records within a twenty-day period
With regard to the statute‘s default twenty-day period for determining whether to produce requested records, an agency‘s failure to make that determination within twenty days is not an actionable violation of FOIA. Nor was it necessarily a violation of FOIA that the requests were still pending before the agency when the suit was filed. Indeed, the statute expressly contemplates that an agency could take several months to process a FOIA request, and agencies regularly—and lawfully—take that long to determine whether to produce requested records. And while it may be true that the Secret Service has previously produced records after Judicial Watch filed suit (and did so again in this case), the mere fact that an agency produces records following the initiation of judicial proceedings tells us nothing about whether the non-production of the documents before that point violated the statute. In short, the allegations in the complaint, even if true, are consistent with lawful conduct under FOIA.
The complaint in this case therefore fails to allege a policy or practice of violating FOIA. By deciding otherwise and allowing this action to go forward, the court today enables FOIA suits to proceed past the pleadings in a broad range of situations in which an agency‘s practices are fully in keeping with the statute‘s requirements. Agencies often (and lawfully) take significantly longer than twenty days to process a FOIA request. But an agency that does so, under the court‘s rationale today, would routinely be subject to an ostensibly viable claim that it has a policy or practice of violating the statute. The statute, in my respectful view, does not countenance that result.
I.
A.
To understand why the complaint in this case fails to allege a policy or practice of violating FOIA, it is necessary to review in some detail the statute‘s provisions governing the processing of a request for records. Upon a proper request for records submitted by “any person,” FOIA generally calls for a federal agency to make the requested records “promptly available” to the requester unless the records fit within one of the statutory exemptions. See
Whenever the agency will take longer than ten days to process a request, the statute requires the agency to assign the requester an “individualized tracking number.”
How long might that take? As a default matter, FOIA provides that an agency “shall . . . determine within 20 [business] days . . . whether to comply with [a] request” for records, and “shall immediately notify” the requester “of such determination and the reasons therefor.”
The statute does not envision that an agency invariably will be able to process a request within the twenty-day period. That “timeline is not absolute.” Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. (CREW) v. FEC, 711 F.3d 180, 184 (D.C. Cir. 2013). It is instead only a “default.” Id. at 189. After all, “it would be a practical impossibility for agencies to process all FOIA requests completely within twenty days.” Id. (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted).
For instance, in the event of certain “unusual circumstances” specified in the statute, the agency can extend the time period for processing a request by an additional ten business days (or thirty days total).
In addition, apart from the enumerated “unusual circumstances,” the statute separately allows an agency to show that “exceptional circumstances” (as opposed to “unusual circumstances“) exist, and that the agency “is exercising due diligence in responding to the request.”
The “exceptional circumstances” determination is made by a court after a requester initiates the statute‘s process of judicial review. See
At that point, the requester, if she wishes, can proceed directly to court rather than continue to pursue the matter within the agency. Once in court, the agency has the burden to justify any decision to withhold responsive documents,
B.
If an agency produces the requested records while the matter is pending in court, the aim of the requester‘s claim for the records would have been realized and her claim generally becomes moot. See Payne Enters., Inc. v. United States, 837 F.2d 486, 490-91 (D.C. Cir. 1988). In the ordinary case, then, an agency‘s production of the requested records will occasion a dismissal of the requester‘s suit.
As our court recognized in Payne, however, an agency‘s production will not “moot a claim” if “an agency policy or practice will impair the party‘s lawful access to information in the future.” Id. at 491 (emphasis omitted). A requester thus can avoid dismissal on mootness grounds by plausibly alleging: first, that the “agency‘s refusal to supply information evidences a policy or practice of delayed disclosure or some other failure to abide by the terms of the FOIA,” and, second that the agency‘s policy or practice will continue to injure the requester in the future. Id. In other words, a requester can maintain her action, notwithstanding the agency‘s production of the requested records, if the agency follows a policy or practice of unlawfully withholding records under FOIA and might continue to do so absent judicial intervention. Otherwise, an agency could have a policy of unlawfully refusing to release responsive documents, produce the documents when (and only when) sued in order to moot a given case, and then resume its unlawful withholding policy thereafter.
We have recognized the viability of a requester‘s policy-or-practice claim on just two prior occasions. Both cases involved an agency‘s allegedly unlawful withholding of documents based on an erroneous assertion of a FOIA exemption. See id. at 487; Newport Aeronautical Sales v. Dep‘t of Air Force, 684 F.3d 160, 163-64 (D.C. Cir. 2012). In each case, we allowed the requester to proceed on a policy-or-practice claim notwithstanding the agency‘s production of the requested documents. We did so because of the risk that the agencies would continue to withhold responsive records in the future in reliance on an inapplicable statutory exemption.
II.
Unlike the requesters in Payne and Newport, Judicial Watch does not contend that the Secret Service has a policy or practice of withholding requested records based on the agency‘s erroneous invocation of a FOIA exemption. Rather, Judicial Watch alleges that the Secret Service “has a policy and
practice of... regularly failing or refusing to produce requested records or otherwise demonstrate that requested records are exempt from production within the time period required by FOIA or at least within a reasonable period of time.” Compl. ¶ 22. Judicial Watch‘s claim of an unlawful agency practice thus pertains solely to the time taken by the agency to process its records requests: there is no allegation that the agency is acting unlawfully in any other way, such as by refusing to produce records in invalid reliance on an inapplicable exemption.
Those factual allegations, in my view, do not state a claim that the Secret Service has a policy or practice of violating FOIA. The complaint advances two potential theories of how the Secret Service has engaged in a policy or practice of violating FOIA: first, the agency repeatedly failed to make determinations on Judicial Watch‘s requests “within the time period required by FOIA,” Compl. ¶ 22—i.e., the default twenty-day period,
A.
Judicial Watch first argues that the Secret Service repeatedly failed to make determinations on its requests within twenty days, as with the nineteen requests at issue in this case and the five previous cases identified in the complaint. But the lapse of the default twenty-day period is not itself an actionable violation of FOIA. A repeated lapse of the twenty-day period, then, cannot form the predicate of a viable policy-or-practice claim.
The failure to process a FOIA request within twenty days, while not itself an actionable FOIA violation, does have a consequence under the statute. In that event, the requester can bypass the normal requirement to seek administrative review of an adverse determination on her request and instead proceed directly to district court. See
The court would not, though, grant judgment in the requester‘s favor merely because the default twenty-day period had elapsed without a determination by the agency. Rather, the statute presupposes that the court could recognize that the agency should be given additional time to process the request. That would be warranted if, as we have seen, the agency shows it “is exercising due diligence in responding to the request” and is making “reasonable progress in reducing [a] backlog of pending requests.”
Other provisions in the statute reinforce that a lapse of the twenty-day period cannot itself amount to a FOIA violation. The requirement to provide a tracking number for any request “that will take longer than ten days to process,”
Indeed, FOIA expressly contemplates that an agency could take hundreds of days to process requests. The statute calls for each agency to submit an annual report to the Attorney General setting out, among other things, the number of requests to which the agency made a determination within specified ranges of business days. Each agency must, for example, identify the number of requests for which it made a “determination within a period up to and including 20 days, and in 20-day increments up to and including 200 days.”
Judicial Watch then errs in supposing that a lapse of the default twenty-day timeframe for processing a request constitutes an actionable violation of FOIA. It follows that the complaint cannot state a viable policy-or-practice claim based on the Secret Service‘s failure to make a determination within the twenty-day period for the requests at issue.
B.
Judicial Watch‘s complaint also states that the Secret Service has a policy or practice of failing to produce requested records “within a reasonable period of time.” Compl. ¶ 22. That contention perhaps could be construed to allege that, even if the lapse of the twenty-day period does not itself establish a FOIA violation, the Secret Service‘s failure to make determinations within a “reasonable” time (beyond twenty days) infringed FOIA‘s overarching mandate to make records “promptly available.”
Judicial Watch alleges no such facts here. Judicial Watch contends that, by the time it filed suit in November 2015, the Secret Service had yet to produce records responsive to nineteen requests submitted between July 2014 and August 2015. See Compl. ¶¶ 8, 14. The requests had been pending for between 54 and 329 business days. Id. Ex. A. The complaint contains no allegations suggesting why those time periods might be considered unreasonably—much less unlawfully—long. Rather, even assuming Judicial Watch‘s allegations are true, the Secret Service might well have been working through the nineteen requests in a reasonable and lawful manner. Indeed, the statute, as explained, expressly envisions that agencies may take hundreds of days or more to process requests. See
Consider in that regard how the response times for the requests in this case stack up when compared with the Secret Service‘s general processing of FOIA requests in 2015, the year the complaint was filed. The Secret Service processed roughly 1200 requests that year. U.S. Dep‘t of Homeland Security, 2015 Freedom of Information Act Report to the Attorney General of the United States 13, tbls. VII.C(1)-(2) (Feb. 2016), https://go.usa.gov/xXQvf (hereinafter 2015 DHS FOIA Report). Almost all (roughly 90%) of the requests processed in 2015 were categorized as “complex.” Id. (1050 complex requests versus 145 simple requests). And the average
Considered in that context, the time for which the nineteen requests in this case had been pending when Judicial Watch filed its suit (54 to 329 business days) is in step with the Secret Service‘s general handling of FOIA requests. Nor is the Secret Service some sort of conspicuous outlier among DHS components in its processing times. See id. at 12 tbl. VII.B. (Contrary to my colleagues’ suggestion, Maj. Op. 22; Conc‘g Op. 7-8, I do not necessarily assume that the requests in this case would be categorized as “complex,” although almost all requests processed by the Secret Service were so classified. Rather, in identifying a suitable comparison point to help highlight that processing times of 54 to 329 days do not alone demonstrate a FOIA violation, it is appropriate to reference the average processing time for the largest group of requests for which there is available data, a group that makes up some 90% of all requests.)
Insofar as a FOIA requester can make out a viable policy-or-practice claim based solely on an agency‘s response times, then, Judicial Watch needed to allege something more than that: it submitted multiple FOIA requests, it filed suit when permitted by the statute, and its requests had been pending for some 54 to 329 business days at that time. Those allegations are consistent with lawful conduct by the agency. They thus do not show a policy or practice of violating FOIA.
C.
My colleagues in the majority nonetheless conclude that Judicial Watch‘s complaint states a valid policy-or-practice claim. They reason that the complaint “alleg[es] prolonged, unexplained delays in producing non-exempt records that could signal the agency has a policy or practice of ignoring FOIA‘s requirements.” Maj. Op. 15.
Which of “FOIA‘s requirements” is the Secret Service plausibly alleged to have ignored? The only “requirement” on which the complaint relies is the default twenty-day period for processing a request. For the reasons already set out, however, the lapse of that period does not amount to an actionable violation of FOIA. If a breach of the twenty-day period were itself an actionable violation of FOIA, then a requester could immediately file suit after the twenty-day period passes—on day twenty one, for instance—and qualify right away for the entry of judgment in her favor and an award of attorneys’ fees as a substantially-prevailing party. See
As for my colleagues’ assertion that Judicial Watch experienced “prolonged” delays in obtaining responsive records, Maj. Op. 15, there is no explanation of why the response periods alleged in the complaint might cross the line from permissible to unlawfully “prolonged.” The lapse of the default twenty-day period, as we have seen, does not itself establish that the agency‘s response was unlawfully prolonged. If so, then at what point (beyond twenty days) did the agency‘s response times for the requests in this case become unlawfully prolonged? My colleagues do not say. And it is unclear how a district court is to make that determination.
For instance, are the response times “prolonged” because, for three of the nineteen requests in the case, more than 300 business days had elapsed as of the complaint without a determination by the agency? See Compl. Ex. A. The Secret Service was doing no worse on that metric
In an effort to bolster the idea that the Secret Service‘s response times in this case at some point became unduly prolonged, my concurring colleague would infer that the requests at issue are “wholly straightforward.” Conc‘g Op. 8. The complaint, though, alleges (or says) nothing about the comparative complexity of Judicial Watch‘s requests. At any rate, regardless of whether the Secret Service ultimately prevails in its competing assertion that Judicial Watch‘s requests are “labor intensive,” Campbell Decl. at ¶ 11 (D.D.C. Mar. 18, 2016), ECF No. 16-1, neither the concurring opinion nor the court‘s opinion identifies when (beyond twenty days) response times become sufficiently “prolonged” such that the time periods alleged in a complaint alone are enough to make out a policy-or-practice claim.
In addition to asserting that the Secret Service‘s response times were unduly “prolonged,” my colleagues also say that the response times were “unexplained.” Maj. Op. 15. In that regard, my colleagues presumably rely on Judicial Watch‘s indication that, for a number of the requests in the case, the Secret Service made no communication to Judicial Watch beyond giving a tracking number. See Compl. ¶ 11 & Ex. A.
But the purpose of requiring an agency to give an “individualized tracking number” for requests that will take more than ten days to process is to arm the requester with an efficient means of obtaining “information about the status of [her] request,” including an estimated date on which the agency will finish processing the request.
If a particular request implicates one of FOIA‘s three enumerated “unusual circumstances” and the agency will take more than thirty business days to process it, the statute calls for the agency to give the requester an opportunity either to limit the request‘s scope or to arrange for an alternative timeframe for processing it.
My colleagues, finally, assume that the Secret Service has a practice of responding to Judicial Watch‘s requests only “after it has filed a lawsuit.” Maj. Op. 14. “[O]nly at that point,” my colleagues submit, “has the Secret Service conducted a search to determine whether records can be made available or are exempt from disclosure, or engaged in consultations with Judicial Watch.” Id.
I assume it would violate FOIA for an agency to adhere to a practice of refusing to process a request unless the requester brings a lawsuit. I do not read the complaint to allege that the Secret Service has
Indeed, assuming (as we must) that the Secret Service gave Judicial Watch a tracking number upon receiving the requests, see Compl. ¶ 10, the agency also would have “provide[d] information about the status of [the] request[s]” including an “estimated date” by which it would “complete action” on them,
The complaint therefore does not allege—and at least does not plausibly allege—that it is the Secret Service‘s policy to withhold processing or production of documents unless the requester sues: to say that documents were produced after a suit is not to say that there would have been no processing or production absent the suit. Cf. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 556-57 (2007) (while parallel conduct may be consistent with an illicit agreement, allegations about parallel conduct do not substantiate otherwise conclusory allegation of illicit agreement). Judicial Watch in fact conceded in the district court that the time taken by the agency to process the requests could have been due to a “host of causes,” including agency backlog. Pl.‘s Opp‘n to Mot. J. on Pldgs. 6-7 (D.D.C. Mar. 12, 2016), ECF No. 14.
My colleagues reason that, regardless of whether the Secret Service‘s response times are caused by agency recalcitrance or justifiable backlog, the delay has the effect of making it a “practical requirement” for Judicial Watch to sue in order to obtain records. Maj. Op. 15. But the Secret Service‘s conduct, even assuming the truth of the allegations in the complaint, has not required Judicial Watch to sue.
Rather, the statute affords requesters a choice: if twenty days comes and goes without a determination, the requester may check the tracking information and decide to wait until the estimated completion date arrives, or she may choose to involve a court in an effort to set a different timeline for production. That is how the statute is designed to work. And nothing in the complaint suggests that the process did not work that way here. The remedial process, along with the other provisions of the statute, aim to advance FOIA‘s ultimate mandate of prompt production of non-exempt records. An agency does not violate that mandate when the statutorily-prescribed process works as it was supposed to.
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The evident result of the court‘s holding today is that any requester who alleges that she made more than one request for records, that she received no determination within twenty days, and that she obtained no records before suing, can state a policy or practice claim based on agency delay. That would be so even though the agency may be well on its way to production, and even though there is no plausible allegation of agency recalcitrance. In any such instance, disclosure of the requested
In my view, neither the terms, structure, nor purpose of FOIA demands that result. I of course do not take lightly FOIA‘s highly important mandate that agencies promptly disclose non-exempt records. Nor do I discount the possibility that various agencies are not processing FOIA requests as quickly as they might. The annual reports required by Congress presumably would shed light on poorly performing agencies. FOIA also provides for an investigatory proceeding by the Office of Special Counsel whenever a court issues written findings that “circumstances surrounding [an agency‘s] withholding raise questions whether agency personnel acted arbitrarily or capriciously.”
In this case, however, the Secret Service‘s actions, as alleged in the complaint, do not reflect a policy or practice of violating FOIA. Rather, the allegations are consistent with lawful conduct on the agency‘s part. As a result, the case became moot when the agency finished processing the requests and disclosed responsive documents pursuant to the schedule ordered by the district court. I thus respectfully dissent from my colleagues’ disposition of this appeal.