UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ROBERT HAMMOND, Plaintiff, v. Civil Action No. 16-421 (FYP) DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, et al., Defendants. MEMORANDUM OPINION Between April and May of 2014, Plaintiff Robert Hammond submitted eight requests under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), see 5 U.S.C. § 552, to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (“Walter Reed” or “WRNMMC”) and the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (“BUMED”). Dissatisfied with the responses that he received, Hammond filed the instant suit against Walter Reed and its two overseeing agencies, the Defense Health Agency (“DHA”) and the Department of Defense, alleging that Walter Reed failed to conduct adequate searches and improperly invoked FOIA Exemption 6 to withhold certain information. Hammond brings a separate claim under the Privacy Act, see 5 U.S.C. § 552a, alleging that Walter Reed has not properly safeguarded his medical information. Before the Court are the parties’ dueling motions for summary judgment. For the reasons set forth below, the Court will grant Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment and will deny Plaintiff’s Cross Motion for Summary Judgment. BACKGROUND Between April and May of 2014, Hammond submitted eight FOIA requests to Walter 1 Reed or BUMED. See ECF No. 12 (Amended Complaint), ¶¶ 56, 68, 82, 99, 107, 115, 121, 136. All eight of these requests remain in dispute. See ECF No. 50 (Defendants’ Amended Renewed Motion for Summary Judgment) at 2–16; ECF No. 61 (Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment and Opposition) at 12–28.1 1. FY 2013 Walter Reed Annual FOIA Report to BUMED Hammond submitted his first FOIA request on April 1, 2014, asking for Walter Reed’s FY 2013 Annual Freedom of Information Act Report as it was received by BUMED including “all enclosures and any raw data.” See ECF No. 50-2 (Third Bizzell Declaration), ¶ 4. BUMED determined that it was not the appropriate office to handle this request because Walter Reed “does not forward [its] reports to BUMED.” See Am. Compl., ¶ 57. BUMED therefore transferred Hammond’s request to Walter Reed on April 15, 2014. Id. On August 19, 2014, Walter Reed initially informed Hammond that his request had been “denied under Exemption B5” as an inter-agency/intra-agency document. See ECF No. 50-1 (Second Bizzell Declaration), ¶ 5.2 Walter Reed thereafter “voluntarily withdrew the (b)(5) objections” when DHA published its 2013 Annual FOIA Report on March 9, 2017, which detailed all FOIA requests made of Walter Reed during the relevant period. See Third Bizzell Decl., ¶ 6. At that time, Walter Reed provided Hammond with access to the final report, as well as its 2013 FOIA Processing Log, which Walter Reed had transmitted to DHA for inclusion in 1 Page-number citations to Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment refer to the page numbers that the Court’s Electronic Filing System automatically assigns. 2 FOIA Exemption 5 protects “inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters that would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency.” See 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(5). The file …
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