Kowack v. United States Forest Serv., No. 12-35864 (9th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff, a teacher in the United States Forest Service’s Job Corps Program, filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain records pertaining to an investigation into misconduct allegations. The Forest Service located responsive pages but withheld almost half of them under the personal privacy exemption. An administrative appeal resulted in the disclosure of 188 pages of heavily-redacted documents. Plaintiff filed suit, challenging the redactions. The district court ordered the Forest Service to create a Vaughn index describing each document and explaining why each document was exempt from disclosure. The Ninth Circuit reversed in part and remanded with instructions to order the government to produce a more detailed Vaughn index with regard to two categories of documents, and if that was not sufficient, to conduct an in camera review. The Court held that the remaining redactions were proper.
Court Description: Freedom of Information Act. The panel reversed in part the district court’s summary judgment entered in favor of the United States Forest Service in an action challenging the Forest Service’s response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Mark Kowack, a teacher in the Forest Service’s Job Corps Program, filed a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request to obtain records pertaining to a misconduct investigation. The Forest Service responded that it had located responsive pages, but withheld a number of pages under certain FOIA Exemptions. After an administrative appeal, the agency disclosed 188 pages of documents, many of which were heavily redacted. The district court ordered the Forest Service to create a Vaughn index describing each document and explaining why each document was exempt from disclosure. Concerning Kowack’s challenge to redactions to twenty- two pages of witness statements made to an investigator by employees other than himself, the panel held that it did not have enough information to assess whether the Forest Service properly redacted the documents pursuant to FOIA Exemption 6, the personal privacy exemption. Concerning Kowack’s challenge to redactions made to seventeen pages of administrative documents and reports created by the agency investigator and redacted under FOIA Exemption 6 and FOIA Exemption 5 (which protects certain intra-agency records), the panel held that Exemption 6 did not justify non-disclosure of the documents and there was insufficient information to determine whether Exemption 5 applied. Concerning Kowack’s challenge to the redaction of grievance-related documents created by the National Federation of Employees and complaints made by employees other than Kowack, the panel held that the documents were properly withheld under FOIA Exemption 6. The panel remanded to the district court to order the government to produce a more detailed Vaughn index with regard to the first two categories of documents, and, if that was insufficient, to conduct an in camera review. The panel directed the district court to disclose the documents if the government failed to meet its burden. The panel held that the remaining redactions were proper.
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