Reyes v. Dep't of Interior, No. 17-01418, 2020 WL 2319861 (S.D. Cal. May 11, 2020) (Houston, J.)

Reyes v. Dep't of Interior, No. 17-01418, 2020 WL 2319861 (S.D. Cal. May 11, 2020) (Houston, J.)

Re:  Request for records concerning "tribal affiliation and blood quantum correction" of third party

Disposition:  Granting defendants' motions for summary judgment

• Litigation Considerations, Adequacy of Search:  "The Court finds Defendants meet their burden to show they conducted a search reasonably calculated to uncover all relevant documents."  The court relates that "[t]he declarations demonstrate records maintained by the BIA relevant to Native American Tribal affiliation and enrollment fall under Record Series 3700 Tribal Government and are maintained by the Southern California Agency and the Pacific Regional Office."  "BIA's records are maintained either in paper format in a hard copy filing system or electronic format in Progeny ES, an electronic date management system."  The court relates that defendants state that these locations were searched and notes defendants' search terms.  "They also attest that all files that were reasonably expected to contain the requested records were searched."
   
• Exemption 6:  "The Court finds the exemption was properly applied."  Regarding the privacy interests, "[t]he Court's review of the documents supports [BIA]'s assertion that they contain personal information of individuals other than Plaintiff."  "Defendants assert a privacy interest in the intimate details of an individual's and deceased individual's family members' personal heritage and ethnicity disclosure of which could lead to harassment, discrimination, or embarrassment."  "While Plaintiff maintains he seeks records about a person who is now deceased, [BIA] asserts a privacy interest on behalf of the deceased individual's living relatives."  "The Court is not persuaded that the privacy interests of the living relatives are somehow diminished or eliminated by the possibility the information is available elsewhere to the public."  Regarding the public interest, the court finds that "Plaintiff[']s and his family's interest in obtaining the information does not serve the core purpose of FOIA."  "Plaintiff also asserts a public interest in holding the BIA accountable for any failure to perform its duty to maintain accurate records surrounding tribal affiliations."  "This interest is in line with the purpose of FOIA in that it seeks an understanding of the BIA's activities."  "However, on balance, the privacy interests of the living relatives outweigh the public interest in the information."  Finally, "[t]o the extent Plaintiff argues Defendants waive their right to withhold the information because they 'officially acknowledged' the information, [the court holds that] the argument fails because Plaintiff fails to demonstrate applicability of the official acknowledgment doctrine."  The court relates that "[BIA]'s prior release of a draft family tree to Plaintiff in 2013 does not affect the privacy interests asserted because the Defendants demonstrate it is different than the pending FOIA requests and anything initially withheld in the current requests that was previously released to Plaintiff was again released in a supplemental production to Plaintiff."
   
• Exemption 5, Deliberative Process Privilege:  "The Court's in camera review of the materials supports BIA's explanation that the withheld information includes documents reflecting recommendations and deliberations while processing Plaintiff’s requests."  The material withheld by BIA included "'pre-decisional intra-agency decision making discussions regarding how to process, fulfill, and respond to FOIA requests filed by the Plaintiff,'" including "'hand written notes of agency employees.'"  The material also included email exchanges discussing draft responses to plaintiff, draft responses to plaintiff, and draft charts.