Della Rocca v. United States Postal Service

• Court: District Court, District of Columbia
• Decided: July 1, 2025
• Docket: Civil Action No. 2022-0786
• Status: Published

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

BRIAN DELLA ROCCA, et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v. No. 22-cv-0786 (DLF)

UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE,

Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Plaintiffs Brian Della Rocca, Lawrence Doyle, and John Moynihan bring this Freedom of

Information Act (FOIA) action, see 5 U.S.C. § 552, against the United States Postal Service to

obtain records related to shipped election ballots during the 2020 election. Am. Compl. ¶ 12, Dkt.

8. The Court previously denied the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment and ordered the

Postal Service to supplement the record regarding the search they conducted. Before the Court is

the Postal Service’s renewed Motion for Summary Judgment, Dkt. 38. For the reasons that follow,

the Court will grant the motion.

I. BACKGROUND

The plaintiffs filed a FOIA request with the Postal Service in early 2022. Am. Compl.

¶ 15. They submitted five requests for various records related to four shipping contracts. Id. ¶ 17.

Among other things, they sought “cargo information” and “administrative notes” relating to

contracts for shipping election voting ballots during the 2020 election. Id. The parties agree the

Postal Service satisfied request one. Pl.’s Opp’n to Def.’s Statement of Undisputed Facts, ¶ 3,

Dkt. 39-1. The Postal Service also informed the plaintiffs that the cargo information in request

three is only maintained for 90 days and no longer available. Id. ¶ 4. The plaintiffs did not appeal the Postal Service’s determination for request three. Id. ¶ 9. Initially, the Postal Service believed

that requests two, four, and five, were overly broad. Id. ¶ 5. After engaging in conversations to

clarify the scope of the remaining three requests, id. ¶¶ 14–18, the Postal Service conducted

searches for the narrowed information, id. ¶ 29. In particular, the plaintiffs were interested in

documents that the Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) relied on to produce a report

on 2020 election mailed ballots. Id. ¶ 20. After receiving documents, the plaintiffs were still not

satisfied, and both parties moved for summary judgment. Dkts. 28, 29. The Court denied both

motions and ordered the Postal Service to submit a supplemental declaration providing further

details on its search methods and the scope of the request. Della Rocca v. USPS, No. 22-cv-786

(DLF), 2024 WL 4459375, at *2 (D.D.C. Aug. 27, 2025). The Postal Service now renews its

motion for summary judgment.

II. LEGAL STANDARDS

Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure states that “[t]he court shall grant summary

judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the

movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). “Materiality is, of course,

a function of the applicable legal standard, which in this case is that an agency responding to a

FOIA request must conduct a search reasonably calculated to uncover all relevant documents, and,

if challenged, must demonstrate beyond material doubt that the search was reasonable.”

Kowalczyk v. DOJ, 73 F.3d 386, 388 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (citation modified). All facts and inferences

must be viewed in the light most favorable to the requester and the agency bears the burden of

showing that it complied with FOIA. Chambers v. U.S. Dep’t of Interior, 568 F.3d 998, 1003

(D.C. Cir. 2009).

2 To meet this standard, a federal agency “must prove that each document that falls within

the class requested either has been produced, is unidentifiable, or is wholly exempt from the

[FOIA’s] inspection requirements.” Nat’l Cable Television Ass’n v. FCC, 479 F.2d 183, 186 (D.C.

Cir. 1973). The agency “must show beyond material doubt . . . that it has conducted a search

reasonably calculated to uncover all relevant documents.” Weisberg v. DOJ, 705 F.2d 1344, 1351

(D.C. Cir. 1983). “[F]ederal courts . . . rely on government affidavits to determine whether the

statutory obligations of the FOIA have been met.” Perry v. Block, 684 F.2d 121, 126 (D.C. Cir.

1982) (per curiam). The agency’s affidavit is accorded a presumption of good faith, SafeCard

Servs., Inc. v. SEC, 926 F.2d 1197, 1200 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (citation modified), and “[s]ummary

judgment may be granted on the basis of agency affidavits if they contain reasonable specificity

of detail rather than merely conclusory statements, and if they are not called into question by

contradictory evidence in the record or by evidence of agency bad faith,” Judicial Watch, Inc. v.

U.S. Secret Serv., 726 F.3d 208, 215 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (citation modified). “[T]he vast majority of

FOIA cases can be resolved on summary judgment.” Brayton v. Off. of the U.S. Trade

Representative, 641 F.3d 521, 527 (D.C. Cir. 2011).

III. ANALYSIS

The plaintiffs challenge the adequacy of the Postal Service’s search. Courts apply a two-

step framework to evaluate the adequacy of an agency’s FOIA search. First, the agency must show

that its search was reasonable, meaning it “made a good faith effort to conduct a search for the

requested records, using methods which can be reasonably expected to produce the information

requested.” Watkins L. & Advoc., PLLC v. DOJ, 78 F.4th 436, 442 (D.C. Cir. 2023) (citation

modified). Agencies “submit declarations that denote which files were searched and by whom

those files were searched” and must prove they took a reasonable “systematic approach to

3 document location.” Heartland All. for Hum. Needs & Hum. Rts. v. USCIS, 406 F. Supp. 3d 90,

110 (D.D.C. 2019) (citation modified). If the agency carries its burden of showing reasonableness,

at step two, “the burden shifts to the FOIA requester to produce countervailing evidence suggesting

that a genuine dispute of material fact exists as to the adequacy of the search.” Id. (citation

modified). The requester must “rebut” the agency’s showing of reasonableness with any

“evidence . . . showing that the search was not conducted in good faith.” Moore v. Aspin, 916 F.

Supp. 32, 35 (D.D.C. 1996).

A. Reasonableness

To establish the reasonableness of their search, the Postal Service provided a supplemental

declaration of Janine Castorina, the Chief Privacy and Records Management Officer for the Postal

Service. Am. Castorina Decl. ¶ 3, Dkt. 38-2. The supplemental declaration addresses the gaps the

Court identified in its previous order. Order of Aug. 27, 2024, at 3, Dkt. 35. It explains the Postal

Service’s clarified understanding of the scope of plaintiffs’ second, fourth, and fifth requests. Am.

Castorina Decl. ¶ 18. Castorina’s declaration also describes the Postal Service’s Package

Tracking, Surface Visibility, and Informed Visibility computer systems in thorough detail. Id.

¶ 20. It further explains that those three departments “track mailable matter and packages,” id.

¶ 21, and are the only departments likely to contain documents responsive to the plaintiffs’ request,

id. ¶¶ 20–21. And it makes clear that the Postal Service searched for the specific contract numbers

listed in the FOIA request, id. ¶¶ 21, 24, and located truck bar codes and parcel ID codes which

identified whether the pieces of mail in the relevant shipments were parcels or envelopes, first

class or priority, and their weight, id. The Postal Service has met its burden of producing a

“reasonably detailed affidavit” describing its search process. See Hunton & Williams LLP v. EPA,

248 F. Supp. 3d 220, 236 (D.D.C. 2017).

4 The plaintiffs have not offered any countervailing evidence raising doubts about the

adequacy of the Postal Service’s search. Instead, they argue “it [is] obvious” that the Postal Service

is withholding records because the produced documents are “lacking the specificity” needed for

the OIG report. Pl.’s Br. at 2, Dkt. 39. But pure speculation is not rebuttal. Competitive Enter.

Inst. v. Off. of Sci. & Tech. Pol’y, 241 F. Supp. 3d 14, 22 (D.D.C. 2017). Simply because a search

fails to produce responsive materials does not mean that the search was inadequate. See SafeCard,

926 F.2d at 1201; see also Kalmin v. Dep’t of Navy, 605 F. Supp. 1492, 1496 (D.D.C. 1985) (noting

the “possibility that certain evidence may be suspect” is not “proof that it is wrong” and cannot

avert summary judgment in the FOIA context). And the plaintiffs offer no reason to distrust the

agency’s sworn statement that “the Postal Service does not know the specific contents of a

particular container,” Am. Castorina Decl. ¶ 20. See Wilbur v. CIA, 355 F.3d 675, 678 (D.C. Cir.

2004) (“[T]he agency’s failure to turn up a particular document, or mere speculation that as yet

uncovered documents might exist, does not undermine the determination that the agency

conducted an adequate search for the requested records.”).

The plaintiffs further object to the Postal Service’s search on the grounds that the agency

never requested information from OIG. Pl.’s Br. at 2. But the agency had already provided the

election mail logs that the OIG report relied on. Castorina Decl. ¶ 19, Dkt. 29-1. And the Postal

Service confirmed it does not keep the additional documents that the plaintiffs hypothesized

were sources for the OIG report. Am. Castorina Decl. ¶ 19. Castorina confirmed that no other

department, which would include OIG, would have any records regarding container contents. Id.

¶ 21.

In short, the plaintiffs’ arguments amount to an assertion that OIG must have relied on

other documents. See Pl.’s Br. at 2. But “speculation that as yet uncovered documents may exist”

5 is insufficient to rebut the “presumption of good faith” afforded to the Postal Services after

searching in the relevant department for records on the contracts the plaintiffs identified.

SafeCard, 926 F.2d at 1200–01 (citation modified). The plaintiffs have failed to produce evidence

showing a genuine dispute of material fact. And the record shows that the Postal Service “made a

good faith effort to conduct a search for the requested records, using methods which [could] be

reasonably expected to produce the information requested.” Reps. Comm. for the Freedom of the

Press v. FBI, 877 F.3d 399, 402 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (citation modified).

B. Bad Faith

The plaintiffs also cannot demonstrate that the Postal Service acted in bad faith. The only

support they muster relates to the dispute over the election mail logs. During initial conversations

to narrow the scope of requests two, four, and five, the plaintiffs brought up the OIG report. At

the time, the Postal Service declined provide the election mail logs, arguing they were not included

in the scope of the requests. Castorina Decl. ¶ 30. According to the plaintiffs, the Postal Service

also told them that OIG relied on the documents already provided to the plaintiffs and OIG “sort

of backed into” its conclusions. See Pl’s Br. at 2, 5. The significance of this particular statement

is unclear, but regardless of its meaning, it does not suggest that the Postal Service engaged in bad

faith. The agency has consistently maintained that the election mail logs did not fit within the

original FOIA request. See Email of January 22, 2024, Ex. 1, Dkt. 40-1; Castorina Decl. ¶ 30.

Thus, its refusal to produce the disputed election mail logs had nothing to do with whether the OIG

report relied on those logs. Moreover, the agency subsequently provided the underlying mail logs

to the plaintiffs. The Postal Service’s continual efforts to work collaboratively with the plaintiffs

to seek to understand their requests and to provide additional documents evince good faith, see

6 Meeropol v. Meese, 790 F.3d 942, 953 (D.C. Cir. 1986), and the plaintiffs have failed to show the

contrary.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Court will grant the Postal Service’s Motion for Summary

Judgment. Accordingly, it is

ORDERED that the defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED. The

Clerk of Court is instructed to close the case. This is a final appealable order.

SO ORDERED.

________________________ DABNEY L. FRIEDRICH United States District Judge July 1, 2025