Ameen v. United States Dep't of State

OMAR AMEEN, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 21-1399 (BAH)

United States District Court, District of Columbia

September 13, 2021

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

BERYL A. HOWELL, CHIEF JUDGE

Pending before the Court is defendants United States Department of State (“State Department”), Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), and United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) motion to dismiss plaintiff Omar Ameen's lawsuit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Defs.' Mot. Dismiss (“Defs.' Mot.”), ECF No. 11. Plaintiff was previously represented by the Office of the Federal Defender for the Eastern District of California in an extradition case, and plaintiff's then-counsel made five requests under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) seeking to compel defendants to produce records for use in that litigation. Compl. ¶¶ 2, 15, ECF No. 1. Plaintiff prevailed in his extradition case, id. ¶ 15 but now faces deportation proceedings, id. ¶ 19. Plaintiff brought this FOIA suit seeking the documents requested by his then-counsel in connection with the earlier extradition matter. Compl. at 12 (“Pl.'s Request for Relief”). Defendants contend that plaintiff's claims should be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because the underlying document requests were made by plaintiff's attorney and did not sufficiently make clear that they were made on plaintiff's behalf. Defs.' Mem. Supp. Mot. Dismiss (“Defs.' Mem.”) at 1, ECF No. 11-1. For the following reasons defendants' motion is denied.

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiff is an Iraqi refugee residing in Sacramento, California. Compl. ¶¶ 8-9. Plaintiff “left Iraq for Turkey in early 2012, ” id. ¶ 10, and, after applying for refugee status with the United Nations, arrived in the United States in 2014, id. ¶¶ 10-11. He was arrested in August of 2018, however, on charges that he “murdered an Iraqi police officer in [Iraq] in June of 2014[, ]” id. ¶ 12, and the government “sought his immediate extradition to Iraq, ” id. ¶ 13. After two years of extradition proceedings, the presiding judge ultimately “declined to extradite” plaintiff, id. ¶ 15, because the government's key witnesses were “unreliable, ” id. ¶ 17 and the “series of events [was] simply not plausible, ” id. ¶ 18. On the same day that plaintiff was scheduled for release, “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took [plaintiff] into custody for allegedly defrauding the government by lying about his alleged terrorist connections[, ]” and plaintiff “now faces deportation proceedings.” Id. ¶ 19.

The Office of the Federal Defender for the Eastern District of California represented plaintiff in his extradition proceedings and made five separate FOIA requests to the defendant agencies seeking various records from the respective agencies regarding plaintiff and the extradition case, in which plaintiff was a defendant. Specifically, in 2019, plaintiff's counsel submitted two requests to the State Department, id. ¶¶ 20, 59, one to the FBI, id. ¶ 31, and one to DOJ, id. ¶ 38. In January of 2020, plaintiff's counsel submitted an additional FOIA request to DOJ. Id. ¶ 67. Each request mentioned plaintiff by name, stated that the Federal Defender's office represented plaintiff in the extradition case for which the documents were sought, and indicated that the documents were requested in relation to that representation. See Compl., Ex. 1, Jan. 14, 2019 FOIA Req. to State Dep't (“First State Dep't Req.”) at 1, ECF No. 1-1; id., Ex. 8, Feb. 20, 2019 FOIA Req. to FBI (“FBI Req.”) at 2, ECF No. 1-1; id., Ex. 13, Aug. 26, 2019 FOIA Req. to DOJ (“First DOJ Req.”), ECF No. 1-2; id, Ex. 26, Sept. 23, 2019 FOIA Req. to State Dep't (“Second State Dep't Req.”), ECF No. 1-3; id., Ex. 31, Jan. 26, 2020 FOIA Req. to DOJ (“Second DOJ Req.”), ECF No. 1-4. Each request included either a privacy waiver or series of disclosure authorizations signed by plaintiff. See Pl.'s Opp'n Defs.' Mot. Dismiss (“Pl.'s Opp'n”) at 2, ECF No. 12.

Plaintiff filed his complaint on May 21, 2021. See Compl. Plaintiff alleges that, for each of the five requests, defendants violated FOIA by “failing to produce the records responsive to the request as soon as practicable or issu[e] a determination within twenty business days.” Id. ¶¶ 76, 81, 86, 91, 96. Accordingly, plaintiff asks the Court to order defendants “to conduct a reasonable search for records and to produce the requested records promptly[, ]” as well as “enjoin [d]efendants from withholding non-exempt public records under FOIA[.]” Pl.'s Request for Relief. Defendants moved to dismiss the case, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, Defs.' Mot. at 1, which motion is now ripe for resolution, see Pl.'s Opp'n; Defs.' Reply Supp. Mot. Dismiss (“Defs.' Reply”), ECF No. 13.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction and “have only the power that is authorized by Article III of the Constitution and the statutes enacted by Congress pursuant thereto.” Johnson v. Comm'n on Presidential Debates, 869 F.3d 976, 980 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (quoting Bender v. Williamsport Area Sch. Dist., 475 U.S. 534, 541 (1986)). To survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1) the plaintiff thus “bears the burden of invoking the court's subject matter jurisdiction, including establishing the elements of standing.” Arpaio v. Obama, 797 F.3d 11, 19 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (citing Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992)). Even when the parties fail to address a potential jurisdictional defect “by inattention or deliberate choice, ” because federal courts are “forbidden . . . from acting beyond [their] authority, ” NetworkIP, LLC v. F.C.C., 548 F.3d 116, 120 (D.C. Cir. 2008), it is incumbent on courts to “assure [them]selves of the existence of jurisdiction, ” Montrois v. United States, 916 F.3d 1056, 1060 (D.C. Cir. 2019).

When a jurisdictional dispute “present[s] a dispute over the factual basis of the court's subject matter jurisdiction . . . the court must go beyond the pleadings and resolve” any dispute necessary to the disposition of the motion to dismiss. Feldman v. F.D.I.C., 879 F.3d 347, 351 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (alteration and omission in original) (quoting Phoenix Consulting v. Republic of Angola, 216 F.3d 36, 40 (D.C. Cir. 2000)). In such situations, the “court may properly consider allegations in the complaint and evidentiary material in the record, ” affording the plaintiff “the benefit of all reasonable inferences.” Id. (citing Herbert v. Nat'l Acad. of Scis., 974 F.2d 192, 197 (D.C. Cir. 1992)); see also Am. Freedom Law Ctr. v. Obama, 821 F.3d 44, 49 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (noting that, “[i]n considering a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction” courts “‘may consider materials outside the pleadings'” (quoting Jerome Stevens Pharm., Inc. v. FDA, 402 F.3d 1249, 1253 (D.C. Cir. 2005))). Absent “evidentiary offering[s], ” Feldman, 879 F.3d at 351, however, the Court must seek jurisdictional assurance by accepting as true all undisputed “factual allegations in the complaint and constru[ing] the complaint liberally, ” and again “granting plaintiff the benefit of all inferences that can be derived from the facts alleged.” Am. Nat'l Ins. Co. v. F.D.I.C., 642 F.3d 1137, 1139 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

III. DISCUSSION

Article III requires that plaintiffs establish “the irreducible constitutional minimum of standing, ” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, that they have “(1) suffered an injury in fact, (2) that is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant, and (3) that is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision, ” Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S.Ct. 1540, 1547 (2016) (citing Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560-61; Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Env'tl Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 180-81 (2000)); see also Louie v. Dickson, 964 F.3d 50, 54 (D.C. Cir. 2020).

FOIA provides that “each agency, upon any request for records” that is sufficiently specific and made in accordance with published procedures for submitting such requests, “shall make the records promptly available to any person.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A). An agency's duties under FOIA are triggered by a properly framed request for information, and the agency's obligations flowing from that request are with respect to “the requester” of the information. See Id. § 552(a)(6)(A)(i) (requiring agency to notify “the person making [the] request” whether the agency will comply with the request).

“[A]nyone whose request for specific information has been denied has standing to bring an action [under FOIA].” Maloney v. Murphy, 984 F.3d 50, 60 (D.C. Cir. 2020) (quoting Zivotofsky ex rel. Ari Z. v. Sec'y of State, 444 F.3d 614, 617 (D.C. Cir. 2006)). An individual whose FOIA request has been denied “has suffered a particularized injury because he has requested and been denied information Congress gave him a right to receive.” Prisology, Inc. v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 852 F.3d 1114, 1117 (D.C. Cir. 2017). At the same time, however, “if a party has not made a request within the meaning of FOIA, then he does not have standing to bring a lawsuit.” Wetzel v. U.S. Dep't of Veterans Affs., 949 F.Supp.2d 198, 202 (D.D.C. 2013) (citing McDonnell v. United States, 4 F.3d 1227, 1236-39 (3d Cir. 1993); Feinman v. FBI, 680 F.Supp.2d 169, 172 (D.D.C. 2010)).

Defendants contend that plaintiff has not suffered an injury-in-fact because the Federal Defender's staff—plaintiff's counsel in his extradition proceeding—made the FOIA requests at issue, rather than the plaintiff himself. See Defs.' Mem. at 8. Defendants concede that a lawyer may make a request on behalf of a client, but argue that this is not the case here...