Shapiro v. U.S. Soc. Sec. Admin.
| Decision Date | 08 March 2021 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 2:19-cv-000238 |
| Parties | Robert E. SHAPIRO, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Vermont |
Emily J. Joselson, Esq., Justin G. Sherman, Esq., Langrock Sperry & Wool, LLP, Middlebury VT, for Plaintiff.
Jason M. Turner, United States Attorney's Office District of Vermont, Burlington VT, for Defendant.
Plaintiff Robert E. Shapiro brings this suit pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") against the United States Social Security Administration ("Defendant"), arising from its alleged failure to adequately respond to his FOIA request. Pending before the court are the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment.
Plaintiff alleges three causes of action against Defendant: (1) failure to respond to his FOIA request within the statutory timeframe (Count I); (2) failure to produce responsive records (Count II); and (3) improper denial or failure to respond to his request for a fee waiver or reduction (Count III). Plaintiff seeks declaratory and injunctive relief in addition to compensatory damages and an award of attorney's fees and costs.
On July 24, 2020, Defendant filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim or, in the alternative, for summary judgment arguing that Plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies and thus dismissal of his claims is warranted. In the event Defendant does not prevail on this argument, it asserts that it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law in its favor because Plaintiff's FOIA request was unreasonably broad and burdensome and its $2,908.00 fee was appropriate.
On September 22, 2020, Plaintiff cross-moved for summary judgment on the same issues and opposed Defendant's motion. On November 3, 2020, the parties completed their briefing, at which point the court took the pending motions under advisement.
Plaintiff is represented by Emily J. Joselson, Esq. and Justin G. Sherman, Esq. Assistant United States Attorney Jason M. Turner represents Defendant.
Plaintiff is a medical doctor and a professor of neurological sciences at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont. In addition to teaching and conducting research, he treats patients for migraine and other headache disorders
as well as neurological disorders. He is a member of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology specializing in neurology and is certified in the field of Headache Medicine by the United Council for Neurological Subspecialties. He is the founding president of the Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy, a national organization that advocates on behalf of the interests of persons with disabling headache disorders. He is the author of peer-reviewed articles and scholarly research on migraine disability, headache disorders, and other neurological disorders.
On October 5, 2018, Plaintiff filed an electronic FOIA request, which states as follows:
, such as cluster headache.
Defendant received Plaintiff's FOIA request and assigned it tracking number SSA-2019-000087. On May 29, 2019, Defendant issued Plaintiff a fee of $2,908.00 in response to his FOIA request pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1306(c) and 20 C.F.R. § 402.175. On or about June 5, 2019, Plaintiff agreed to pay the fee.
On July 26, 2019, Defendant issued an initial decision on Plaintiff's FOIA request and released two memoranda. It stated that it was withholding 1,377 responsive pages under FOIA Exemptions 5 and 6. Based on Plaintiff's review of the two memoranda, he determined they were irrelevant to his request as neither contained the terms "headache" or "migraine" and they did not pertain to the assessment of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Social Security Insurance (SSI) claimants’ impairments for migraine or headache disorders
under the Listing of Impairments.
On or about August 23, 2019, Plaintiff appealed Defendant's initial decision "due to withholding of responsive documents and the fee assessed by the agency."1 Id. at 3. In addition, Plaintiff appealed the withholding of other relevant documents that may not have been included in Defendant's response.2 Plaintiff's appeal, set forth in a twenty-four-page letter, explains his grounds for appeal and the reasons why he believes there are additional non-exempt records responsive to his FOIA request. Defendant received Plaintiff's appeal and assigned it tracking number SSA-2019-003518.
On December 20, 2019, Plaintiff filed a Complaint with the United States District Court for the District of Vermont, although Defendant had not yet issued a decision on Plaintiff's appeal. Upon review of Plaintiff's administrative appeal, Defendant concluded that its initial interpretation of Plaintiff's FOIA request was too narrow and its initial search was not reasonably calculated to obtain all responsive records. Upon further review and searches, Defendant determined that Plaintiff's FOIA request was unreasonably broad and burdensome based on the lack of limitations on the time frame at issue, type of records sought, agency offices to be searched, and relevant subject matter.
C.T. Monica Chyn details the results of Defendant's second search in her declaration (the "Chyn Declaration") attached to Defendant's motion. She avers the second search for responsive documents involved Defendant conducting an electronically stored information search of 134 potential custodians of responsive documents, contacting "almost every ... Headquarters office[,]" and searching its e-discovery system. (Doc. 15 at 4.) Defendant used the search terms "headache," "migraine," and "neurological" or "neuro" and sampled documents from those searches. Based on the results, it concluded that the terms "headache" or "migraine" were likely to be responsive while documents using the terms "neurological" or "neuro" were not.
The second search identified 1,581,644 responsive pages that would require line-by-line review due to the nature of the documents requested and the likelihood that they would be subject to the deliberative process exemption. Defendant estimates that review would take 193,311 hours and cost $7,293,140.00. Defendant further claims that processing Plaintiff's FOIA request would severely interfere with its ability to complete its FOIA workload, including mandatory FOIA reports, meeting proactive disclosure requirements, responding to congressional inquiries, satisfying information requests under other statutes, and assisting members of the public with obtaining information requests directly related to their Social Security benefits.
Plaintiff filed a Statement of Disputed Facts in which he challenges the accuracy of Defendant's estimates of the burden imposed by his FOIA request in light of the irrelevance of the memoranda produced. On that same basis, Plaintiff challenges Defendant's conclusion that processing his FOIA request would severely interfere with Defendant's FOIA workload.3
To survive a motion to dismiss, "a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ " Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) ). Plaintiff must allege sufficient facts to "nudge[ ] [his] claims across the line from conceivable to plausible[.]" Twombly , 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955. "A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937.
The sufficiency of a plaintiff's complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) is evaluated using a "two-pronged approach[.]" Hayden v. Paterson , 594 F.3d 150, 161 (2d Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 679, 129 S.Ct. 1937...
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