UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DMITRY PRONIN, Plaintiff, v. Civil Action No. 17-1807 (TJK) FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS, Defendant. MEMORANDUM OPINION Dmitry Pronin, proceeding pro se and in forma pauperis, filed this suit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), alleging violations of the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552. For his document requests that remain at issue, Pronin challenges both the adequacy of BOP’s searches and its withholding of BOP staff lists at three facilities where he was incarcerated, which include the names and positions of staff members. The Court denied BOP’s first motion for summary judgment, finding insufficient BOP’s searches and explanations for withholding these documents under various FOIA exemptions. BOP filed a renewed motion for summary judgment, declaration, and Vaughn Index, relying on Exemptions 2, 6, and 7(C) to withhold them. Because BOP has now justified its searches and withholdings of staff lists under Exemption 6, which protects private information from personnel files, the Court need not address the validity of BOP’s other claimed exemptions and will grant summary judgment in its favor. Background Pronin, a prisoner currently in custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), submitted several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in 2016 and 2017, only two of which remain at issue, Request No. 2016-02619 and Request No. 2017-05599. Memorandum Opinion and Order, ECF No. 33 at 2.1 The only information in the documents responsive to those requests that Pronin still seeks are the names and positions of staff members at three BOP facilities: the federal correctional center (FCC) in Florence, Colorado; United States Penitentiary (USP) in Terre Haute, Indiana; and FCC in Beaumont, Texas.2 See ECF No. 1 (“Compl.”) at 5– 6; ECF No. 1-1 at 5–6; ECF No. 26 at 2, 6, 8; ECF No. 29 at 3; ECF No. 39 at 14, 19, 29–30, 37.3 To locate documents containing staff lists at FCC Florence, its Human Resources Division staff searched its “Human Resources Staffing Reports,” which are generated electronically each pay period. ECF No. 36-2, Stroble Decl. II ¶ 5. This search yielded (1) a 28- page “Staffing and Strength Report” of FCC Florence staff names “used to assist the BOP . . . in planning of staff movement locally and for management of staff throughout the agency for succession planning and other efforts made by the BOP to place employees in a properly classified position[]” and (2) four pages from a “‘DOJ Internal White Pages’ . . . employee directory that contains” “routine employment information maintained in different formats in an employee’s employment record.” Id. ¶¶ 5, 20–21, 26. BOP withheld the FCC Florence Staffing Report in full under FOIA Exemptions 2, 6, and 7(C), and it withheld all information from the DOJ Internal White Pages directory under Exemptions 6 and 7(C), except for the names of FCC wardens, which it disclosed. Id. ¶¶ 13–14, 20–21, 27, 31, 33; Vaughn Index II at 1, 4. 1 The Court incorporates the background and legal ...
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