Prudential Locations LLC v. U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Dev., No. 09-16995 (9th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CaseThis appeal arose from a Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"), 5 U.S.C. 552, request concerning documents about individuals who reported to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ("HUD") regarding their suspicions that appellant, a real estate company, was violating the law. HUD produced the documents with certain redactions, asserting that the redactions were justified pursuant to FOIA Exemption 6. At issue was whether the district court properly granted HUD's motion for summary judgment. In light of FOIA's strong presumption in favor of disclosure, and the narrow reach of FOIA exemptions, the court could not affirm the grant of summary judgment where HUD had conjured the specter of privacy interests but it had not adduced evidence establishing such interests were actually at stake, or if they were, how much weight they should be accorded. Accordingly, the court vacated the grant of summary judgment to HUD and remanded to allow the parties to develop an adequate factual basis for the district court to determine whether the information at stake could be withheld pursuant to Exemption 6.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on October 9, 2013.
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