United States Tenth Circuit

In counties' Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) action seeking access to records of the Bureau of Land Management and Department of the Interior (DOI) concerning the granting and retiring of grazing permits in a Utah national monument, partial summary judgment for counties and partial summary judgment for the government is affirmed in part, but reversed in part where: 1) counties' FOIA fee waiver request for the production of certain e-mail records on backup tapes was properly denied; and 2) documents created by a paid consultant for the DOI were properly withheld under Exemption 5 of FOIA, and the district court erred in finding to the contrary.

Appellate Information

• Decided 02/02/2009
• Published 02/03/2009

Judges

• PAUL KELLY, JR., Circuit Judge., Before HENRY, Chief Judge, KELLY, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Tenth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Brandon L. Jensen (Karen Budd-Falen of Budd-Falen Law Offices, L.L.C., on the briefs), Cheyenne, WY, for Plaintiffs-Appellees-Cross-Appellants., Mark W. Pennak (Jeffrey S. Bucholtz, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Brett L. Tolman, United States Attorney, Leonard Schaitman, Wendy M. Keats, Appellate Staff, Civil Division, Department of Justice, on the briefs), Washington, D.C., for Defendants-Appellants-Cross-Appellees.