Madel v. Dep’t of Justice

Madel sued the Department of Justice and Drug Enforcement Administration for a response to Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552, requests that sought information on oxycodone transactions in Georgia by five private companies. DEA withheld some documents as confidential commercial information. The district court granted summary judgment to DEA, finding it produced all non-exempt information. The court denied declaratory and injunctive relief and attorney fees. The Eighth Circuit reversed and remanded. Rejecting a claim that DEA did not justify withholding the five documents under FOIA Exemption 4, the court concluded that DEA showed that substantial competitive harm was likely. DEA did not make “barren assertions” that the documents were exempt, but linked each document to identifiable competitive harms. The court remanded for consideration of FOIA’s segregability requirement. DEA did not show “with reasonable specificity why documents withheld pursuant to a valid exemption cannot be further segregated.” Its Declaration does not address how disclosure of the data from, for example, 2007, leads to the proffered substantial competitive harms of a competitor “target[ing] specific markets” or “forecast[ing] potential business of new locations.” View "Madel v. Dep't of Justice" on Justia Law