Pfeiffer v. DOE, No. 20-2924, 2023 WL 4405158 (D.D.C. July 7, 2023) (Walton, J.)

Pfeiffer v. DOE, No. 20-2924, 2023 WL 4405158 (D.D.C. July 7, 2023) (Walton, J.)

Re:  Requests for various records that plaintiff characterizes as being related to his scholarly research

Disposition:  Denying defendant’s motion for reconsideration

• Litigation Considerations, Relief:  “Because the Department has not identified any intervening change of controlling law or new evidence, demonstrated a clear error that needs correction, or shown that the Court’s prior ruling amounts to manifest injustice if unchanged, . . . the Court must therefore deny the Department’s motion for reconsideration.”
  
  “As an initial matter, the Court must decide whether the Department’s motion for reconsideration is appropriately considered under Rule 54(b) or Rule 59(e).”  “Under Rule 54(b), any order or decision that does not constitute a final judgment ‘may be revised at any time before the entry of a judgment adjudicating all the claims and all the parties’ rights and liabilities.’”  “The Court’s June 27, 2022 Order, which the Court issued contemporaneously with its June 27, 2022 Memorandum Opinion, denied the Department’s motion for summary judgment and granted the plaintiff’s cross-motion, ‘insofar as it s[ought] summary judgment on the issue of his entitlement to a FOIA fee waiver as a non-commercial educational [institution] requester as to the [five] FOIA requests at issue[,]’ in this case . . . thus resolving the merits of the plaintiff’s claim that the Department violated the FOIA ‘by assessing search and review fees against him[.]’”  “Due to an inadvertent oversight, the Court’s June 27, 2022 Order did not enter judgment for the plaintiff as to this claim.”  “However, on June 1, 2023, the Court modified its June 27, 2022 Order by entering judgment for the plaintiff on his claim that he is entitled to a FOIA fee waiver as a non-commercial educational institution requester with respect to the five FOIA requests at issue in this case.”  “Thus, the Court construes the plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration under Rule 59(e).”
  
  Next, “[b]ecause the Department does not rely on an ‘intervening change of controlling law’ or ‘the availability of new evidence,’ . . . as grounds for reconsideration, . . . the Court will confine its Rule 59(e) analysis to the question of whether it needs to ‘correct a clear error or prevent manifest injustice[.]’”  “The Court begins with the Department’s argument that ‘the Court committed a clear error when it failed to explain how each of the five FOIA requests pertains to [the p]laintiff’s scholarly research.’”  “As the plaintiff correctly notes, the Department’s argument that ‘[the] FOIA requests at issue are unrelated to [the p]laintiff’s research was squarely before the Court on summary judgment[.]’”  “The Department’s only new contention is that the Court erred by failing to analyze each FOIA request individually.”  “While it is true that ‘[a]gencies must make an independent fee status determination for each request[,]’ . . . the Court need not individually analyze each of the FOIA requests that comprise a batch of requests for different records and documents as the Department argues . . . .”  “[The] Court has already determined [that] ‘the plaintiff [ ] provided ample evidence of how the current requests relate to his scholarly research[,]’ including ‘a letter from a professor supporting the plaintiff’s FOIA requests generally and confirming the areas of the plaintiff’s research[,]’ and ‘a copy of his curriculum vitae, as well as his dissertation proposal, to further connect his scholarly research to the requested FOIA records.’”  “While the Department may disagree with the Court’s conclusion, ‘[m]ere disagreement’ is insufficient to support a Rule 59(e) motion.”  “Thus, the Court concludes that the Department has failed to meet its burden to show clear error or manifest injustice.”
  
  Finally, “[t]he Court . . . turns to the Department’s argument that ‘the Court should revise its [June 27, 2022] Memorandum Opinion to hold that [the p]laintiff’s five FOIA requests were intended for commercial reasons.”  “Beginning with the Department’s marginal profit argument, the Court’s June 27, 2022 Memorandum Opinion concluded that ‘the potential marginal profit the plaintiff would acquire from his Patreon webpage, should he even choose to publish the FOIA records on his Patreon webpage, does not trump his scholarly intentions to utilize the records for his studies and his online dissemination of the records without cost to the public.”  Additionally, the court finds that “it is not clear that any amount of the plaintiff’s monthly Patreon profits would be derived from the FOIA records at issue in this case.”  “Thus, the Department’s claim that ‘the Court should reassess its Memorandum Opinion to find that [the p]laintiff is a commercial requester because his revenues of approximately $21,600 per annum generated from the requested records from his five FOIA requests are not “marginal profit” by any objective standard[,]’ . . . is not necessarily accurate because the per annum revenue the plaintiff earns from his Patreon is not necessarily generated from the acquisition of the requested documents at issue in this case . . . .”  “As the Court previously explained, the plaintiff’s potential earnings from posting the requested FOIA records on his Patreon do not ‘constitute a primarily commercial interest that outweighs his scholarly intent[,]’ as reflected by the fact that the plaintiff would ‘also post those records publicly for free on a different website[.]’”  The Department has therefore not demonstrated that the Court’s conclusion is clearly erroneous based on the relevant case law or that a manifest injustice would result if the opinion is not reconsidered.”  “Turning to the Department’s second argument regarding the plaintiff’s fee status classification – i.e., that the plaintiff’s scholarly intentions are not ‘sufficiently linked to his requests[,]’ to categorize him as an educational institution requester, . . . the Court concludes that this argument has already been addressed.”  “[O]ver the Department’s objection, the Court concluded that ‘the plaintiff . . . could not have made it clearer that his primary intention for use of the records is for scholarly purposes[.]’”  “Therefore, the Court need not entertain the Department’s attempt to reargue this issue.”  “Accordingly, the Court concludes that the Department has failed to satisfy its burden to demonstrate clear error or manifest injustice warranting relief from the June 27, 2022 Memorandum Opinion . . . .”