Harrington v. Food and Drug Administration

CourtDistrict Court, District of Columbia
DecidedJanuary 20, 2022
DocketCivil Action No. 2020-1895
StatusPublished

This text of Harrington v. Food and Drug Administration (Harrington v. Food and Drug Administration) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, District of Columbia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Harrington v. Food and Drug Administration, (D.D.C. 2022).

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

KOHL HARRINGTON,

Plaintiff, v. Civil Action No. 20-1895 (JEB)

FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, et al.,

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Plaintiff Kohl Harrington is a documentary filmmaker who has made a habit of

submitting repeated Freedom of Information Act requests to the Food and Drug Administration

about pet food. In this latest episode, he submitted eight such requests to FDA in spring 2020

and then filed this suit. In response, the agency has processed and produced thousands of pages

of records, and only two of the eight requests remain at issue. The Government projects

completing production on these two in early 2023 — after it finishes responding to Plaintiff’s

numerous other, earlier-filed requests. Dissatisfied with this state of affairs, Harrington now

moves for partial summary judgment, asking the Court to order immediate production of all

records responsive to the two outstanding requests. Because FDA and the Center for Veterinary

Medicine — the branch of the agency responsible for the two requests — are processing

Plaintiff’s FOIA requests at an acceptable rate and because he has not accepted the agency’s

eminently reasonable offer to pause processing of his earlier-filed requests in order to complete

this one within 60 days, the Court will deny his Motion.

1 I. Background

Between April 26 and May 14, 2020, Harrington submitted eight FOIA requests to FDA.

See ECF No. 31-1 (Declaration of Sarah Kotler), ¶ 11; see also ECF No. 1 (Compl.), ¶¶ 7, 15,

23, 28, 34, 39, 44, 49. Those requests sought far-reaching records concerning pet food, including

emails, videos, scientific-testing documents, and more. See Kotler Decl. at 3–4. Within

essentially the same timeframe, agency officials sent Plaintiff acknowledgement letters

confirming receipt of each of the eight requests. Id., ¶ 11; see ECF No. 31-2 (Exh. 1 to Kotler

Decl.) at 1–16. Harrington did not seek expedited processing of the requests pursuant to 5

U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(E). See Compl., ¶¶ 7, 15, 23, 28, 34, 39, 44, 49; Kotler Decl., ¶ 11.

Plaintiff then filed this lawsuit against Defendants FDA and Department of Health and

Human Services on July 14, 2020, 61 days after submitting the eighth request. See Compl. at 10.

After the Court was assigned this case, it ordered the parties to “confer and submit a joint

proposed briefing schedule.” Minute Order of Aug. 24, 2020. Rather than proposing a briefing

schedule, the parties filed a Joint Status Report stating that they “have been conferring about the

Freedom of Information Act requests at issue in this case and related matters,” that “[t]hese

discussions have been productive and are ongoing,” and proposing submitting a further status

report. See ECF No. 7 (Joint Status Report of Sept. 4, 2020) at 1. Over the next year, the parties

continued to submit Joint Status Reports while the agency processed and produced responsive

documents. In fact, from March 25 to June 7, 2021, FDA processed and produced over 7,000

pages and a number of videos in response to six of the eight requests. See Kotler Decl., ¶¶ 13–

16; see also, e.g., ECF No. 23 (Joint Status Report of Apr. 12, 2021) at 1–3.

FDA has now completed processing and production for all but two of Harrington’s

requests in this case, and those requests are the subject of this Motion. See Kotler Decl., ¶ 17.

2 Both requests (Nos. 2020-3793 and 2020-3795) are assigned to CVM’s FOIA staff because they

seek emails of CVM employees. Id. CVM, which is “one of FDA’s smallest centers, and has

one of FDA’s smallest center FOIA staff,” ECF No. 31-3 (Declaration of Sandra J. Cepeda),

¶ 10, has not yet produced the remaining documents because it faces an “increased backlog of

FOIA requests” as well as an “unprecedented level of FOIA litigation.” Id., ¶¶ 11–12. Indeed,

Harrington himself is currently seeking voluminous records from CVM in at least one other

FOIA lawsuit. See Harrington v. FDA, No. 20-cv-656 (D.D.C.) (Harrington I). In that earlier-

filed case, CVM has made twelve productions, yet it still has hundreds of thousands of pages to

review and produce. See Cepeda Decl., ¶ 14.

Plaintiff now moves for partial summary judgment in this case with respect to the

outstanding two requests. In the Government’s Opposition, it “estimates that it can begin

processing these two requests in January 2023 and complete production to Plaintiff in March

2023.” ECF No. 31 (Gov. Opp.) at 11. Defendants further note that they have offered to “pause

[] processing in Harrington I for approximately 60 days to allow CVM to shift its resources to

processing the two requests at issue here, with the intention to resume processing in Harrington I

once processing and production in response to [these two requests] are complete.” Id. (citing

Cepeda Decl., ¶ 20). They also renew that offer once again. Id. at 11 n.2. Plaintiff, for his part,

failed to file a reply brief or otherwise respond on the record to the agency’s projected timeline

or its offer to shift its efforts from the Harrington I requests to those at issue in this case.

II. Legal Standard

Summary judgment must be granted 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); see also Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. 242, 247–48 (1986); Holcomb v.

3 Powell, 433 F.3d 889, 895 (D.C. Cir. 2006). A fact is “material” if it is capable of affecting the

substantive outcome of the litigation. See Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. at 248; Holcomb, 433 F.3d at

895. A dispute is “genuine” if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict

for the nonmoving party. See Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. at 248; Holcomb, 433 F.3d at 895. “A

party asserting that a fact cannot be or is genuinely disputed must support the assertion” by

“citing to particular parts of materials in the record” or “showing that the materials cited do not

establish the absence or presence of a genuine dispute, or that an adverse party cannot produce

admissible evidence to support the fact.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(1).

FOIA cases typically and appropriately are decided on motions for summary judgment.

See Brayton v. Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, 641 F.3d 521, 527 (D.C. Cir. 2011). In a

FOIA case, a court may grant summary judgment based solely on information provided in an

agency’s affidavits or declarations when they “describe the justifications for nondisclosure with

reasonably specific detail, demonstrate that the information withheld logically falls within the

claimed exemption, and are not controverted by either contrary evidence in the record nor by

evidence of agency bad faith.” Larson v. U.S. Dep’t of State, 565 F.3d 857, 862 (D.C. Cir. 2009)

(citation omitted). Such affidavits or declarations “are accorded a presumption of good faith.”

SafeCard Services., Inc. v.

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