Am. Wild Horse Campaign v. U.S. Bureau of Land Mgmt., No. 22-3061, 2024 WL 3967256 (D.D.C. Aug. 26, 2024) (Cooper, J.)

Am. Wild Horse Campaign v. U.S. Bureau of Land Mgmt., No. 22-3061, 2024 WL 3967256 (D.D.C. Aug. 26, 2024) (Cooper, J.)

Re:  Request for records concerning handling of plaintiff’s report on purported inhumane treatment of animals in defendant’s care

Disposition:  Denying plaintiff’s motion for attorney fees and costs

• Attorney Fees, Eligibility:  The court holds that “[plaintiff] has not met that burden here.”  “Here, the Court never ordered relief to [plaintiff].” “So [plaintiff] seeks to demonstrate eligibility based on the ‘catalyst theory,’ which considers whether the lawsuit ‘caused a change in the agency’s position regarding the production of requested documents.’”  “The Court concludes that [plaintiff] has not met its burden to show that ‘it is more probable than not that the government would not have’ released the requested documents ‘absent the lawsuit.’”  “[Plaintiff] relies on only two pieces of evidence to establish that its lawsuit caused the Bureau to release the requested documents:  (1) the delay between [plaintiff’s] request and the Bureau’s release of documents; and (2) the Bureau’s failure to communicate with [plaintiff] during that period.”  “Neither can overcome the Bureau’s representations that it ‘generally processes FOIA requests in the order they are received,’ ‘intended to process [plaintiff]’s FOIA request’ in that order, and never denied [plaintiff’s] request.” “The Court must presume those representations ‘were made in good faith.’”  “The Court thus has ‘good reason to believe’ that the Bureau would have released the records in question when it finished processing [plaintiff’s] request, even if [plaintiff] had never filed suit.”  “True, a significant delay by an agency in complying with FOIA ‘may provide the “inference that the agency forgot about, or sought to ignore, a FOIA requester’s request.”’”  “And the Bureau’s delay in processing [plaintiff’s] request was considerable.” “But ‘some amount of delay in excess of the statutory limit is, regrettably, a common feature of the FOIA process.’”  “And the Bureau represents that the ‘request remained in [the Bureau’s] processing queue for several months’ ‘[d]ue to [the Bureau’s] extensive FOIA backlog.’”  “The Bureau further indicates that its backlog has been extensive over the past years.”  “A processing period of just under a year does not strike the Court as out of the ordinary given this large backlog.”  “The mere fact of the delay is thus consistent with the Bureau’s explanation for it, and [plaintiff] has not provided other evidence sufficient to counter the Bureau’s presumptively good-faith representations.”  “Nor was there a ‘sudden acceleration’ in the Bureau’s processing after [plaintiff] filed suit that might ‘lead a court to conclude that . . . the filing of the lawsuit was the real reason for that acceleration.’”  “The Bureau did not release the requested records until three months after [plaintiff] filed suit.”  “It therefore ‘seems more likely, in fact, that the documents would have been processed in the same manner, with the same result, regardless of whether litigation was filed.’”  “[Plaintiff] also relies on the Bureau’s failure to communicate about the status of the request while it was pending.”  “The Court agrees that the Bureau should have done more to apprise [plaintiff] of the status of its request and explain the reason for the delay.” “But the Bureau’s failure to communicate, while regrettable, does not alone overcome its assurances that it intended to process [plaintiff’s] request in the order received and experienced delays due to backlog.”
   
• Attorney Fees, Entitlement:  “Even if [plaintiff] were eligible for fees and costs, the Court would find that it is not entitled to them.”  Regarding the first factor, “[t]he Court cannot discern any public benefit to the documents [plaintiff] obtained through its FOIA request.”  “The only document [plaintiff] received that was not already in its possession appears to be an [administrative] email . . . .”  “The remainder of the records obtained by Plaintiff include its own publicly available report, the Bureau’s response to the report (which Plaintiff already had), and a copy of that response forwarded to Bureau staff and legal counsel.”  “Notably, the released records did not shed any additional light on [plaintiff’s] allegations of animal mistreatment.”  “The Court thus concludes that the largely administrative emails [plaintiff] received do not ‘benefit[ ] the public by increasing its knowledge of its government.’”  Regarding the second and third factors, the court finds that “[plaintiff] is a non-profit organization that does not benefit commercially from obtaining the records in question, so these factors favor it.”  “The Bureau does not argue otherwise.”  Regarding the fourth factor, “[a]s just explained, [plaintiff] has given the Court no reason to doubt the Bureau’s explanation for its delay in releasing the requested records.”  “Even if the Bureau’s backlog of requests does not go so far as to supply a reasonable basis for withholding the records, the Bureau’s representations certainly do not reflect recalcitrance or obduracy.”  “The fourth factor weighs in favor of the Bureau.”  “The Court concludes that the balance of the factors weighs against [plaintiff].”