Hajro v. USCIS, No. 11-17948 (9th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseAfter the district court found that USCIS engaged in a pattern or practice of violating the Freedom of Information Act’s (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(a)(6)(A), (B), (C), time limits, USCIS challenged the district court’s grant of summary judgment, a permanent injunction, and an attorneys’ fees award in favor of plaintiffs. USCIS also challenged the district court’s jurisdiction to enforce a 1992 Settlement Agreement entered into by an INS attorney. Determining that the court has jurisdiction to review the summary order, the court dismissed USCIS's challenge to the permanent injunction for lack of jurisdiction given its prematurely filed notice of appeal; held that while the district court may assert supplemental jurisdiction over the Settlement Agreement claims, plaintiffs have failed to show an “unequivocally expressed” waiver of sovereign immunity; and clarified the standing requirements to assert a FOIA pattern or practice claim. Therefore, the court vacated the injunction and remanded with instructions to conduct further proceedings on an open record to determine whether the attorney has standing to bring a pattern or practice claim under this standard. The court also found plaintiffs' pattern or practice claim moot and reversed the summary judgment order, remanding for further proceedings. The court vacated and remanded the attorneys' fees award for further consideration.
Court Description: Freedom of Information Act. The panel vacated the district court’s permanent injunction; reversed the district court’s summary judgment order; vacated the attorneys’ fees award; and remanded for further proceedings in a Freedom of Information Act action brought against the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) by permanent resident Misrad Hajro and his attorney James Mayock. The district court found that USCIS engaged in a pattern or practice of violating the Freedom of Information Act’s time limits, and entered summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs. The USCIS challenged the district court’s jurisdiction to enforce a 1992 Settlement Agreement entered into by Mayock and USCIS’s predecessor agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, concerning processing of FOIA requests. The district court entered the summary judgment order, USCIS filed its notice of appeal, and then the district court entered a permanent injunction. The panel held that this court had jurisdiction to review the summary judgment order, but dismissed USCIS’s challenge to the scope of the permanent injunction order for lack of jurisdiction under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(2). Reviewing the summary judgment order, the panel held that the jurisdictional rule announced in Kokkonen v. 4 HAJRO V. USCIS Guardian Life Ins. Co., 511 U.S. 375 (1994) (holding that if a district court wished to retain jurisdiction to later enforce the terms of a settlement agreement, the order dismissing a case with prejudice must incorporate the terms of the settlement agreement or expressly retain jurisdiction), applied retroactively to the 1992 Settlement Agreement. The panel held that because Kokkonen applied retroactively and the 1992 district court order did not retain jurisdiction over the prior lawsuit’s Settlement Agreement, the district court did not have the inherent power to enforce the terms of the Settlement Agreement. The panel also held that while the district court may assert supplemental jurisdiction over the Settlement Agreement claims, plaintiffs failed to show an “unequivocally expressed” waiver of sovereign immunity. The panel therefore reversed summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs as to Claims One and Two. The panel held that the factual record was not sufficiently developed to determine whether plaintiff Mayock had standing to bring a FOIA pattern or practice claim. The panel also held that plaintiff Hajro lost standing to bring a pattern or practice claim during the pendency of this appeal when he was granted his citizenship, because the probability that USCIS’s delays would impair Hajro’s lawful access to information in the future was now remote. The panel, therefore, reversed and remanded for further fact finding as to Mayock’s standing and dismissed Hajro’s claim as moot. Judge Rawlinson concurred in part and dissented in part. Judge Rawlinson agreed with the majority except as to the issue of Mayock’s standing. Judge Rawlinson would reverse the district court’s ruling that Mayock had standing to pursue an action in his own right, and remand for dismissal of all claims. HAJRO V. USCIS 5
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