To recover attorney fees, even under the more liberal standards of the 2007 Open Records act which amended FOIA attorney fee standards, a requester still must establish that he is both eligible for and entitled to the fees. In other words, getting documents after a lawsuit is filed isn't an automatic ticket for receiving attorney fees.
Even though he received documents following commencement of FOIA litigation because the agency took steps to declassify the material, journalist Ed Brayton has been denied the recovery of attorney fees because he was found not to be entitled to the fees. Judge Ricardo M. Urbana of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia found that Brayton was not entitled to the fees because the agency met one of the standards barring entitlement, namely, it properly had classified the documents at the time of the litigation and therefore was well within its rights in initially denying them to Brayton.
I expect to see more cases similar to this one where a requester receives documents after litigation is brought and the agency fights paying attorney fees. Of course, it will be much more difficult for agencies when they can't rely on a proper basis for withholding at the time the litigation was brought.
Anyone who knows an attorney in the WDC-Baltimore area who will file against the Social Security Administration for ignoring not only my FOIA request, but my Congressional representative: please send them my way. daw.usa@live.com
Posted by: Need Legal Help | January 19, 2010 at 11:03 AM
Why so??? Why FOIA requester denied entitlement to attorney fees?
Posted by: Bankruptcy | February 23, 2011 at 02:15 AM