Relief and Remedies


 * This article is part of a series on Litigation

Introduction
The terms "judicial relief" and "judicial remedy" can be used interchangeably. They refer to the court's imposition of its will by way of enforcement of a right, imposition of a penalty, or making of another court order.

Relief Where Information Has Been Improperly Withheld
The FOIA statute imposes limitations on the types of relief a court may grant in a FOIA lawsuit In particular, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has held that the statutory language of the FOIA limits relief to the disclosure of improperly withheld records to a particular requester - i.e. FOIA cannot permit a court to order the publication of information, even information required to be published under subsection (a)(1). Rather, courts are permitted only to order "production" of the information to the FOIA plaintiff. ￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼

Relief Where Information Has Been Validly Withheld
If a court determines that information falls within a FOIA exemption and has thus been validly withheld, a court has no inherent, equitable power to order disclosure.

Note, however, that some courts have suggested that the Administrative Procedure Act may be available in situations where the FOIA does not provide the court power to impose the requested declaratory and/or injunctive relief.

Relief Where Information Has Previously Been Released
Ordinarily there can be no relief provided when an agency establishes that it has released the responsive records in full to the requester. However, the D.C. Circuit has held that a court may grant equitable relief if it finds in an exceptional case that the agency maintains an unlawful FOIA "policy or practice" threatening to impair the requester's ability to obtain records in the future, upon application of a strict "capable of repetition but evading review" standard. Typically, this will involve relief being granted where an agency has a history of long and repeated delays that appear likely to reoccur in future. By contrast, if the court determines that the agency is not likely to continue the violating policy in the future, it will grant declaratory relief only.