Rocky Mountain Wild, Inc v. U.S. Forest Service et al

Filing 40

ORDER On or before May 31, 2016, counsel for Rocky Mountain Wild and counsel for the Forest Service shall meet and confer in good faith as to whether the Forest Service has, at that point, fully discharged its FOIA obligations as they pertain to R ocky Mountain Wilds February 2014 FOIA request; and On or before June 15, 2016, Rocky Mountain Wild shall file a joint status report setting forth the issues on which the parties agree, and the parties respective positions on issues for which they do not agree, if any. Based on the joint status report, the Court will address any remaining issues and set any additional deadlines, by Judge Wiley Y. Daniel on 4/6/2016. (evana, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Civil Action No. 14-cv-02496-WYD-KMT
ROCKY MOUNTAIN WILD, INC., a Colorado non-profit corporation,
Plaintiff,
v.
UNITED STATES FOREST SERVICE, a federal agency;
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, a federal agency,
Defendants.

ORDER

The Defendants in this matter have submitted a status report (ECF No. 39) in
response to the Court’s Order of September 30, 2015, which instructed Defendants to
provide additional justification of withheld documents on their Vaughn index, under both
the attorney/client privilege and the deliberative process exemptions in response to
Plaintiff’s February 27, 2014 FOIA request. Defendants have since abandoned their
claims of deliberative process exemptions and focus now only the attorney/client
privilege under Exemption 5, and personal identifier withholdings under Exemption 6.
Defendants provided a revised Vaughn index with their status report, which describes
the withheld documents under the attorney/client privilege exemption. Defendants also
note in their status report that approximately nineteen other documents have been
withheld in full based on Exemption 6, but that they are conferring with Plaintiff as to
whether the parties can reach an agreement regarding the disclosure of these
documents.

In the Court’s Order, Defendants were also instructed to conduct a more
thorough search of additional documents, to identify and review them for applicable
exemptions, and to compile a Vaughn index for those exemptions. As a result of the
additional search, Defendants provided Plaintiff with responsive documents on DVDs.
Defendants provided the Court with two Vaughn indices for the newly discovered
documents, and withheld information based on both the attorney/client privilege
exemption and the personal identifier exemption.
The Court notes that the issues of this matter are intertwined with the issues in
another pending matter, 15-cv-0127, which is pending before Judge William J. Martinez
in this Court, and Defendants are conducting searches that are producing documents
that are applicable in both actions. In light of the searches that Defendants have
conducted, the newly discovered documents that have been produced for Plaintiff, and
the ongoing conferral between the parties regarding produced or withheld documents in
this matter, the Court, sua sponte, orders the following:
1. On or before May 31, 2016, counsel for Rocky Mountain Wild and counsel for
the Forest Service shall meet and confer in good faith as to whether the
Forest Service has, at that point, fully discharged its FOIA obligations as they
pertain to Rocky Mountain Wild’s February 2014 FOIA request; and
2. On or before June 15, 2016, Rocky Mountain Wild shall file a joint status
report setting forth the issues on which the parties agree, and the parties’
respective positions on issues for which they do not agree, if any. Based on
the joint status report, the Court will address any remaining issues and set
any additional deadlines.

Dated: April 6, 2016

BY THE COURT:

s/ Wiley Y. Daniel
Wiley Y. Daniel
Senior United States District Judge