The FDIC has lost its motion for summary judgment in a FOIA lawsuit brought by Vern McKinley for records concerning the FDIC's response to the global economic crisis during the final year of the George W. Bush administration. The case is before Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the District Court for the District of Columbia.
The procedure of this case is interesting -- the FDIC apparently thought no one would realize that there is a large body of FOIA case law against their motion, and that Judge Sullivan and McKinley's counsel, Judicial Watch, would just accept their filing for summary judgment on the grounds of mootness without comment.
To summarize, the FDIC got three requests from McKinley. After they didn't process the requests during the statutory time frame, he filed the lawsuit. One month later, they made a release of documents with redactions and filed a summary judgment motion based on mootness. McKinley opposed and filed a cross-motion challenging the search for records and the redactions. The FDIC then filed a Vaughn index, but according to the court, it wasn't adequate to justify the exemptions. The request is now back in front of the FDIC for either new searches or adequate declarations describing previous searches as well as declarations explaining the FDIC's withholdings.
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Posted by: handout | January 12, 2011 at 11:40 PM