Fair Lines America Foundation v. U.S. Dep’t of Commerce

Summary

Fair Lines Amer­­ica Found­a­­tion filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Commerce Depart­­ment and the U.S. Census Bureau under the Free­­dom of Inform­a­­tion Act (FOIA) to compel the Census Bureau to release records concern­ing insti­tu­­tional living facil­it­ies and other hous­ing facil­it­ies coun­­ted in the group quar­ters oper­­a­­tion for the 2020 Census. On August 8, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held that the Census Bureau was exemp­ted from releas­ing docu­ments respons­ive to plaintiff’s FOIA request under its stat­utory duty to keep census responses confid­en­tial.

Case Back­­­ground

Fair Lines Amer­­ica Found­a­­tion sued the U.S. Commerce Depart­­ment and the U.S. Census Bureau under the FOIA to compel produc­­tion of internal records concern­ing the coun­t­ing of group quar­ters for the 2020 Census. The plaintiff sought records related to how the Covid-19 pandemic affected the coun­t­ing of insti­tu­­tional living facil­it­ies or other hous­ing facil­it­ies in the 2020 Census and the poten­­tial impact the group quar­ters count may have had on the over­­all state popu­la­­tion tabu­la­tions.

Fair Lines asked the court for injunc­t­ive and declar­at­ory relief to compel the Census Bureau to disclose the group quar­ters popu­la­­tion data and other reques­ted records. The Census Bureau respon­ded that produ­cing this data would result in further delays in the release of redis­trict­ing data from the 2020 Census. Fair Lines with­drew its motion for a prelim­in­ary injunc­tion on July 28, 2021.

On August 8, 2022, the court gran­ted the govern­ment’s motion for summary judg­ment. The court’s opin­ion held that the the Census Bureau is not required to release state-level group quarter imputa­tion data from the 2020 Census.

Docu­ments

• Complaint (May 18, 2021)
• Answer to Complaint (June 21, 2021)
• Plaintiff’s Memor­andum in Support of Motion for Prelim­in­ary Injunc­tion (July 19, 2021)
• Status Report (July 20, 2021)
• Defend­ants’ Oppos­i­tion to Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Prelim­in­ary Injunc­tion (July 26, 2021)
• Notice of With­drawal of Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Prelim­in­ary Injunc­tion (July 28, 2021)
• Minute Order (August 6, 2021)
• Motion for Summary Judge­ment (Septem­ber 10, 2021)
• Combined Oppos­i­tion to Defend­ants’ Motion for Summary Judge­ment and Cross Motion for Summary Judge­ment (Octo­ber 1, 2021)
• Defend­ant’s Reply in Support of Motion for Summary Judge­ment and Oppos­i­tion to Plaintiff’s Cross-Motion for Summary Judge­ment (Novem­ber 2, 2021)
• Plaintiff’s Reply in Support of Cross-Motion Summary Judge­ment (Novem­ber 23, 2021) 
• Opin­ion (August 2, 2022)