Springer v. United States
| Decision Date | 28 January 2022 |
| Docket Number | 3:20-CV-3088-B (BH) |
| Parties | LINDSEY KENT SPRINGER, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas |
Referred to U.S. Magistrate Judge[1]
FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATION
Based on the relevant filings and applicable law Plaintiff's Motion for Costs of Filing Fees, received on November 17, 2021 (doc. 37), should be denied.
On October 9, 2020, Lindsey Kent Springer (Plaintiff) filed this action based on his alleged exposure to asbestos and mold while working in a warehouse at the Federal Correctional Institution in Seagoville, Texas (FCI-Seagoville). (doc. 3 at 1). He sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA); Mark Christian, the former acting environmental and safety compliance administrator of FCI-Seagoville, and Ernesto Rosales, the former assistant warden of FCI-Seagoville in their individual capacities under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971); and the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552 et seq. (collectively Defendants). All of his claims were ultimately dismissed on October 19 2021. (docs. 31, 35, 36.) He now seeks to recover the $400.00 filing fee he paid, claiming that he is a prevailing party under FOIA. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(E).
Regarding his FOIA claim, Plaintiff alleged that on December 12, 2019, he submitted a FOIA request to BOP. (doc. 3 at 19.)[2] On January 9, 2020, he received a response noting his request had been “assigned to the complex track and placed in chronological order based on the date of receipt.” (doc. 3 at 81.) It also noted that “[p]rocessing complex requests may take up to nine months.” (Id.) At the time Plaintiff filed this lawsuit, BOP had still not responded to his FOIA request, so he included a claim against BOP for failure to respond to his request within the “time allotted by Congress in violation of [FOIA].” (Id. at 32.) BOP was served with the complaint on December 7, 2020, and, on January 6, 2021, Plaintiff and counsel for Defendants agreed that responsive pleadings would be due by March 15, 2021. (See doc. 41 at 2.)
On January 11, 2021, BOP issued a letter responding to Plaintiff's FOIA request and produced “100 pages[, ] 85 of which were blank, 9 of which were partially redacted, and 6 were released in full.” (doc. 41 at 2.); see also (doc. 15-1 at 6.)[3] It eventually moved to dismiss Plaintiff's complaint, arguing that his FOIA claim had been mooted by the agency's subsequent response to his FOIA request. (See doc. 14 at 5-6.) The Court agreed:
A timeliness claim is rendered moot by an intervening response. Id. (citing Voinche, 999 F.2d at 963); see also Velasquez v. Nielsen, 754 Fed.Appx. 256, 262 (5th Cir. 2018) ( ) (citations omitted). Plaintiff's FOIA claim is based entirely upon the timeliness of the record production and not its adequacy. In support of its motion, the BOP has provided a declaration stating that it has now responded to Plaintiff's FOIA requests.
Plaintiff argues that because BOP produced records after he filed it, his lawsuit caused the agency's response, and he is therefore a substantially prevailing party under FOIA entitled to costs. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(E).
FOIA authorizes courts to grant attorneys' fees and costs in cases in which “the complainant has substantially prevailed.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(E). A FOIA litigant “substantially prevails” by obtaining relief through either “(I) a judicial order, or an enforceable written agreement or consent decree; or (II) a voluntary or unilateral change in position by the agency, if the complainant's claim is not insubstantial.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(E)(ii). The latter-referred to by courts as the “catalyst theory”-may be establishing by showing that “prosecution of the action could reasonably be regarded as necessary to obtain the information and that the action had a substantive causative effect on the delivery of the information.” Lovell v. Alderete, 630 F.2d 428, 432 (5th Cir. 1980)); see also Franklin v. United States, Civil Action No. 3:20-CV-1303-N, 2021 WL 4458377, at *10 (N.D. Tex. Sept. 29, 2021) (citing 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(E)).
As noted by the Fifth Circuit, FOIA Batton v. IRS, 718 F.3d 522, 525 (5th Cir. 2013) (quoting Brayton v. Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, 641 F.3d 521, 524 (D.C. Cir. 2011)). These factors include (1) the benefit to the public deriving from the case; (2) the commercial benefit to the complainant; (3) the nature of the complainant's interest in the records sought; and (4) whether the government's withholding of the records has a reasonable basis in law.” Id. at 527.
Here, no judicial order compelled BOP to respond to Plaintiff's FOIA request, so he must demonstrate that his suit “had a substantive causative effect on the delivery of the information.” Lovell, 630 F.2d at 432. BOP argues that Plaintiff cannot make this showing because it explained at the time it received his FOIA request that the request was complicated, and it might take up to nine months to respond. While it ultimately took longer than nine months to respond, and the response was made after Plaintiff filed suit, “the mere filing of a complaint and the subsequent release of the documents is insufficient to establish causation” under the catalyst theory. See Weisberg v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 745 F.2d 1476, 1496 (D.C. Cir. 1984); but see Electronic Privacy Information Center v. United States Department of Homeland Security, 218 F.Supp.3d 27, 41 (D.D.C. 2016) (“While ‘[t]he mere filing of the complaint and the subsequent release of the documents is insufficient to establish causation,' a significant delay by the agency in complying with FOIA may provide the ‘inference that the agency forgot about, or sought to ignore, a FOIA requester's request-and in such a case an award of [FOIA] costs and fees would be appropriate.'”) (citing Weisberg, 745 F.2d at 1496); Harvey v. Lynch, 178 F.Supp.3d 5, 7 (D.D.C. 2016)).
BOP argues that Plaintiff's case is similar to Verde v. FAA, 287 F.Supp.3d 661, 669-70 (S.D. Tex. 2018), in which normal administrative processing explained the timing of the response. The plaintiff originally filed his FOIA request in May 2016; the agency made limited productions in June 2016 and February 2017, but it made a more substantial one in April 2017-after the plaintiff had filed a motion for summary judgment in his FOIA lawsuit. Id. at 664. The FAA argued that the plaintiff could not show his suit spurred it to act on his FOIA request because it “never changed its position or altered its conduct because of [his] lawsuit.” Verde, 287 F.Supp.3d at 670. The court agreed. Noting cases in which courts refused to award FOIA fees or costs when the agency's response was due to the normal administrative processing of the request and not because of the filing of suit, the court observed that Id. at 670 (citing Weisberg, 745 F.2d at 1476; Gahagan v. USCIS, No. 14-1268, 2015 WL 6738537, at *1, 3 (E.D. La. Nov. 4, 2015)).
BOP also relies on Gahagan, in which the court refused to apply the catalyst theory because the agency had notified the plaintiff that his request would be handled on a “first-in, first-out basis, ” and that due to the complexity of the request, it had been placed in “track 2.” 2015 WL 6738537 at *1, 3. The plaintiff was made aware that his request was number 5, 020 out of 12, 386 FOIA requests pending with the agency at the time he filed his FOIA lawsuit, only one month after he submitted his FOIA request. Id. The agency turned over the requested documents slightly more than two months after the original FOIA request, and slightly more than a month after the plaintiff commenced his suit. See id. at *3. The court found that the plaintiff presented no evidence that the agency's “ultimate disclosure of the requested documents resulted from the filing of his lawsuit, rather than merely [the agency's] ability to overcome administrative problems.” Id.
Plaintiff argues that the time line establishes the required causal connection. (See doc. 41 at 6.) According to him the nine months that BOP said it would take to respond began on December 19, 2019, when it received the request. It did not respond until January 11, 2021-nearly thirteen later, after it had obtained an extension to file a responsive pleading, and more than three months after Plaintiff filed this suit. He also contends that no evidence supports BOP's assertion that “[his] request was placed in a cue and documents were provided after a search and review.” (...
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