Kendrick v. DEA, No. 21-01624, 2025 WL 752602 (D.D.C. Mar. 10, 2025) (McFadden, J.)

Kendrick v. DEA, No. 21-01624, 2025 WL 752602 (D.D.C. Mar. 10, 2025) (McFadden, J.)

Re:  Request for records concerning plaintiff’s case

Disposition:  Granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment; denying plaintiff’s cross-motion for summary judgment and motion to compel

• Litigation Considerations, Adequacy of Search:  The court relates that “[t]wo of the DEA’s searches had been held inadequate:  those conducted in the Asset Forfeiture Section and the Office of Administration.”  “Each has been redone.”  “[Plaintiff] argues that the DEA’s searches remain inadequate.”  “Primarily, he asserts that he has received records in another DEA FOIA case that this case’s searches should have turned up.”  “He points toward another case before this Court in which the DEA produced a seven-page document containing details about his seized money.”  “But in the case at bar, the DEA submitted a supplemental affidavit declaring that it already found and produced the same record during its first round of searches here.”  “More, his point is far from legally conclusive.”  “The relevant standard asks how well the agency searched, not ‘whether it actually uncovered every document extant.’”  “Thus, the DEA wins summary judgment.”  “The agency’s declarations show that the searches ‘w[ere] reasonably calculated to uncover all potentially responsive records, and that all files likely to contain relevant documents were searched.’”  “The first division, the Asset Forfeiture Section, used both [plaintiff’s] name and the appropriate asset ID to search two portals, the Consolidated Agency Tracking System and the Asset Management Portal.”  “Both yielded predictable results; the former showed all previously discovered records and the latter showed none because it only searches paper files.”      “These facts are based on agency affidavits that are entitled to a presumption of good faith, are ‘relatively detailed and non-conclusory,’ and are not contradicted by any evidence in the record or a showing of bad faith.”  “The same holds for the Office of Administration, though a new division conducted the search this time.”  “That office used [plaintiff’s] [Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Information System (“NADDIS”)] number to search for access logs to his NADDIS report.”  “It only returned the same documents already disclosed.”  “As discussed, the agency’s affidavits were ‘relatively detailed and non-conclusory’ with no contradictions in the record.”
   
• Litigation Considerations, Vaughn Index/Declaration:  The court holds that “[plaintiff] rejects the DEA’s Vaughn index, as he did during the first summary judgment proceeding.”  “This time he says that the released pages were not Bates-stamped.”  “But it is the function of the index that matters.”  “The Vaughn index ‘need not be Bates-stamped or otherwise numbered,’ . . . to permit the adversarial testing for which the index is purposed . . . .”
   
• Litigation Considerations, Relief:  The court relates that “[plaintiff] seeks answers to his questions about his investigative file that was destroyed.”      “FOIA does not ‘require[ ] an agency to answer questions[]’ . . . .”
  
  Additionally, the court relates that “[plaintiff] adds to the same argument an unidentified retired DEA agent’s speculation that his file was not the type that DEA would usually destroy.”  The court finds that “[t]his third-hand hearsay adds little to [plaintiff’s] previous assertions and, dispositively, does not contradict the fact that he already received his entire file.”