Human Rights Defense Center v. United States Park Police

United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued October 24, 2024 Decided January 24, 2025
No. 23-5236
HUMAN R IGHTS DEFENSE C ENTER ,
APPELLANT
v.
UNITED S TATES P ARK P OLICE,
APPELLEE
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia
(No. 1:19-cv-01502)
Jim Davy argued the cause for appellant. With him on the
briefs was Deborah M. Golden.
Ryan P. Mulvey was on the brief for amicus curiae
Americans for Prosperity Foundation in support of appellant.
Bruce D. Brown, Katie Townsend, and Adam A. Marshall
were on the brief for amici curiae Reporters Committee for
Freedom of the Press, et al. in support of appellant.
Keisha James was on the brief for amicus curiae National
Police Accountability Project in support of appellant.

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Maxwell A. Baldi, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,
argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were
Brian M. Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney
General, Matthew M. Graves, U.S. Attorney, and Mark B.
Stern, Attorney.
Before: P ILLARD and GARCIA, Circuit Judges, and
GINSBURG , Senior Circuit Judge.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge P ILLARD.
P ILLARD, Circuit Judge: The Human Rights Defense
Center, a non-profit news and advocacy organization focused
on incarcerated people in the United States, filed a Freedom of
Information Act request for information about legal actions
against the United States Park Police. After the Park Police
failed to respond to the request within the statutory period,
Human Rights Defense Center brought this FOIA lawsuit. The
Park Police eventually produced documents responsive to the
FOIA request but withheld the names of officers involved in
three tort settlements. It based those withholdings on FOIA
Exemption 6, which protects from disclosure information that
would constitute a “clearly unwarranted invasion of personal
privacy.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6). The Center challenges that
privacy assertion. The Park Police’s document productions
created a separate legal dispute by inadvertently disclosing
information the agency had intended to withhold. In
documents referencing cases by name, it failed to fully redact
the names of one employment discrimination claimant and one
tort claimant. The Park Police argued that the Human Rights
Defense Center should be barred from using or disseminating
the inadvertently disclosed information. The Center disagrees.
The district court ruled that the Park Police correctly
withheld the officer names under Exemption 6. The court then

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invoked its inherent authority to manage judicial proceedings
as justification to issue a clawback order for the erroneously
produced names. Those rulings were erroneous. By putting
forth generic and conclusory justifications for its withholdings,
the Park Police failed to satisfy its burden under Exemption 6
and the FOIA Improvement Act to show that release of the
officer names would implicate a substantial privacy interest.
And the district court’s non-statutory remedy for the Park
Police’s inadvertent disclosures was not a valid exercise of
inherent judicial authority because its primary purpose was to
fill a perceived gap in the FOIA statute, not to protect the
exercise of any core judicial authority. We therefore vacate the
clawback order and remand for the release of the non-exempt
officer names.
I.
A.
The Freedom of Information Act “commands that
government agencies, ‘upon any request for records . . . shall
make the records promptly available to any person.’” Reps.
Comm. for Freedom of the Press v. FBI, 3 F.4th 350, 357 (D.C.
Cir. 2021) (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)). Agencies may
withhold from disclosure information that falls within one of
the Act’s nine enumerated exemptions. See generally 5 U.S.C.
§ 552(b). Those “limited exemptions do not obscure the basic
policy that disclosure, not secrecy, is the dominant objective of
the Act.” Dep’t of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 361 (1976).
This “strong presumption in favor of disclosure places the
burden on the agency to justify the withholding of any
requested documents.” U.S. Dep’t of State v. Ray, 502 U.S.
164, 173 (1991). The burden is the same when the agency
seeks to redact a portion of a document as when it seeks to
withhold a document in its entirety. Id. Those principles serve

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the overarching purpose of FOIA as a tool for citizens to know
“what their Government is up to.” Nat’l Archives & Recs.
Admin. v. Favish, 541 U.S. 157, 171 (2004) (quoting U.S. DOJ
v. Reps. Comm. for Freedom of the Press, 489 U.S. 749, 773
(1989)).
Exemption 6 permits agencies to withhold “personnel and
medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would
constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6). The “primary purpose” of Exemption 6
is to “protect individuals from the injury and embarrassment
that can result from the unnecessary disclosure of personal
information.” U.S. Dep’t of State v. Wash. Post Co., 456 U.S.
595, 599 (1982). The phrase “similar files” has been construed
to include “detailed Government records on an individual
which can be identified as applying to that individual.” Prison
Legal News v. Samuels, 787 F.3d 1142, 1146-47 (D.C. Cir.
2015) (quoting Jud. Watch, Inc. v. DOJ, 365 F.3d 1108, 1124
(D.C. Cir. 2004)). Exemption 6 may apply to entire files or
may call for redaction of “bits of personal information, such as
names and addresses, the release of which would create a
palpable threat to privacy.” Jud. Watch, Inc. v. FDA, 449 F.3d
141, 152-53 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks
omitted).
Our review of the propriety of a withholding under
Exemption 6 proceeds in two steps. At step one, we determine
“whether disclosure would compromise a substantial, as
opposed to a de minimis, privacy interest.” Niskanen Ctr. v.
FERC, 20 F.4th 787, 791 (D.C. Cir. 2021) (quoting Prison
Legal News, 787 F.3d at 1147). Specifically, “[t]he
government bears the burden of showing that a substantial
invasion of privacy will occur if the documents are released.”
Prison Legal News, 787 F.3d at 1147. “It may do so by
affidavits if they contain reasonable specificity of detail rather

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than merely conclusory statements, and if they are not called
into question by contradictory evidence in the record or by
evidence of agency bad faith.” Id. (internal quotation marks
omitted).
If the government has shown that a privacy interest is
substantial, we proceed at step two to “balance the individual’s
right of privacy against the public interest in disclosure.”
Niskanen Ctr., 20 F.4th at 791 (quoting Prison Legal News, 787
F.3d at 1147). “[T]he balancing inquiry focuses not on the
general public interest in the subject matter of the FOIA
request, but rather on the incremental value of the specific
information being withheld.” Id. (quoting Schrecker v. U.S.
DOJ, 349 F.3d 657, 661 (D.C. Cir. 2003)) (internal quotation
marks omitted). “[U]nless the invasion of privacy is ‘clearly
unwarranted,’ the public interest in disclosure must prevail.”
Ray, 502 U.S. at 177.
Our review does not end with the Exemption 6 analysis.
We must also assess whether the government has adhered to
the requirements of the FOIA Improvement Act. Pub. L.
No. 114-185, 130 Stat. 538 (2016). The Improvement Act
imposes additional, crosscutting obligations on each agency
considering withholding information under any FOIA
exemption. As relevant here, it requires the agency to disclose
even information covered by an exemption unless it
“reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm an interest
protected by an exemption” or if “disclosure is prohibited by
law[.]” FOIA Improvement Act § 2, 130 Stat. at 539 (codified
at 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(8)(A)(i)). This imposes an “independent
and meaningful burden on agencies” to identify the nature of
the harm and show that it will likely result from disclosure of
the particular information the agencies seek to withhold. Reps.
Comm. v. FBI, 3 F.4th at 369 (internal quotation marks
omitted).

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B.
In December 2018 and March 2019, Human Rights
Defense Center (HRDC or Center) submitted FOIA requests to
the United States Park Police for records of all claims or
lawsuits brought against the agency or its employees filed since
January 1, 2010, that resulted in a payment of at least $1,000.
Not having heard from the agency regarding release of the
documents, HRDC filed this FOIA lawsuit in the district court
on May 23, 2019. The Park Police filed its answer, and the
district court ordered the parties to meet and confer to develop
and propose an agreed-upon litigation schedule, including
anticipated dates for release of the documents. HRDC agreed
to narrow the scope of its FOIA request to exclude claims for
less than $3,000, those relating to car accidents claiming
damages under $50,000, and any equal employment
opportunity (EEO) complaint not claiming discrimination. The
Park Police then produced the responsive records, with some
redactions, between September and October of 2019. The
records related to administrative complaints filed against the
Park Police and included settlement offer letters and vouchers
for settlement payments.
Those records fell into two categories: EEO settlement
case files and tort settlement case files. As relevant here, the
Park Police withheld the names of four police officers claimed
to have harmed or witnessed harm to members of the public:
One claim alleged that a sergeant used excessive force against
a person at the Lincoln Memorial, a second alleged that a
detective injured the claimant while attempting to arrest
another person, and a third alleged that a detective improperly
arrested an attendee at a public meeting. Park Police Br. 4-5;
Oral Arg. 48:30-48:54; see Joint Appendix (J.A.) 44-46. The
Park Police states that these claims were all settled pre-
litigation. Park Police Br. 5. The agency also withheld the

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names of the EEO claimants but, because HRDC no longer
seeks those names, the sole disputed redactions are the names
of the three alleged tortfeasors and one witness. See Oral Arg.
48:30-48:54.
The Park Police meanwhile claims that it accidentally
disclosed two more names—one of an EEO claimant and
another of a tort claimant—due to errors in its redaction
process.
On cross-motions for summary judgment, the parties
disputed whether the Park Police was justified in withholding
the officer names and whether HRDC was required to
immediately return or destroy the copies of documents with
inadvertently produced names and not otherwise disclose them.
In support of its motion, the Park Police provided a declaration
from its Freedom of Information Act Officer and a Vaughn
index listing the documents withheld and explaining why each
is subject to one or more FOIA exemptions. J.A. 25-46; see
DiBacco v. U.S. Army, 795 F.3d 178, 186 n.2 (D.C. Cir. 2015)
(explaining purpose of Vaughn index).
On the applicability of Exemption 6, the district court
acknowledged that the Park Police did not identify any
particular harm from disclosure, but nonetheless held that the
release of the names implicated a substantial privacy interest
because the officers could be subject to undue public attention,
harassment, retaliation, and embarrassment. See Hum. Rts.
Def. Ctr. v. U.S. Park Police, No. 19-cv-1502, 2023 WL
5561602, at *5 (D.D.C. Aug. 29, 2023). The district court
acknowledged that FOIA does not provide for the return or
destruction of inadvertently produced documents but held that
it could draw on inherent judicial authority to bar HRDC from
disclosing, disseminating, or making use of the accidentally
produced names. See id. at *6. HRDC timely appealed.

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We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We “review
de novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor
of an agency which claims to have complied with FOIA.”
Cabezas v. FBI, 109 F.4th 596, 601 (D.C. Cir. 2024) (quoting
Nation Mag., Wash. Bureau v. U.S. Customs Serv., 71 F.3d
885, 889 (D.C. Cir. 1995)) (formatting altered). The parties
disagree on the standard governing our review of the district
court’s clawback order. The Park Police argues that our review
should be for abuse of discretion because the order rested on
the district court’s inherent judicial authority. Park Police Br.
9 (citing Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 55 (1991)).
HRDC asserts that this issue is also subject to de novo review.
See HRDC Br. 11. Because the issue on appeal concerns the
legal parameters of the district court’s inherent authority rather
than the court’s discretionary application of an acknowledged
type of inherent authority, our review is de novo. See
McKeever v. Barr, 920 F.3d 842, 844 (D.C. Cir. 2019).
II.
A.
The Park Police has not satisfied its burden to show that
disclosure of the officer names would compromise a substantial
privacy interest. Because the agency’s showing fails at step
one of the Exemption 6 analysis, we need not consider whether
the public interest in disclosure outweighs the individual
privacy interest.
The privacy assertions contained in the Park Police’s
Vaughn index and declarations are wholly conclusory, lacking
even minimal substantiation of the officers’ privacy interest or
the potential harm from disclosing their names. Indeed, the
agency acknowledges that “the government’s declarations did
not specifically analyze the nature of the privacy interest at
issue” in the potential release of the individual officers’ names.

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Park Police Br. 15. Generalities are not enough; showing that
a substantial invasion of privacy will occur if the officer names
are released requires “reasonable specificity of detail rather
than merely conclusory statements.” Prison Legal News, 787
F.3d at 1147 (quoting Jud. Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Secret Serv., 726
F.3d 208, 215 (D.C. Cir. 2013)). After all, Exemption 6 “does
not categorically exempt individuals’ identities” but calls for
case-by-case evaluation “because the privacy interest at stake
may vary depending on the context in which it is asserted.”
Jud. Watch, Inc. v. FDA, 449 F.3d at 153 (quoting Armstrong
v. Exec. Off. of the President, 97 F.3d 575, 582 (D.C. Cir.
1996)) (internal quotation marks omitted).
The Park Police’s statements offer no specific details
showing a privacy interest that is substantial rather than de
minimis. They merely recite the elements of the analysis for
whether Exemption 6 applies. In the Vaughn index, the agency
gave the same reason for withholding each officer name:
Releasing the rank of the officer involved
sufficiently satisfies the public’s interest in knowing
more about [the] case. Releasing the name of the
[officer] who is still employed by the USPP and is a
relatively low-ranking law enforcement officer, only
negatively impacts the officer’s privacy interest and
has a de minimus [sic] public benefit. Additionally,
no court ever found that the allegations were true.
J.A. 45-46. In her declaration, the Park Police FOIA Officer
stated that the agency redacted the information pursuant to
Exemption 6 “because release of the information would
constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy due to
the nature of the complaints.” J.A. 28. The FOIA Officer also
stated that the agency determined that the officers “had a
significant privacy interest in their identities and that their

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privacy interests outweighed the release of the information, and
that release of the information would not shed light on the
activities of” the Park Police. J.A. 30. Those conclusory
assertions fall short.
Unlike agencies’ showings in cases in which we have
sustained withholdings under Exemption 6, the Park Police
fails to provide any concrete basis to conclude that release of
these officers’ names raises threats “more palpable than mere
possibilities.” Rose, 425 U.S. at 380 n.19. For example, in
Judicial Watch v. FDA, we held that Exemption 6 justified
withholding the names of FDA employees involved in the
approval of an abortion drug because the FDA had submitted
affidavits containing detailed evidence of threats of abortion-
related violence. 449 F.3d at 153. The FDA did not have to
show that the threats were directed toward its staff specifically;
it was enough to demonstrate a particularized danger to
similarly situated people—employees of abortion clinics and
facilities manufacturing the drug. Id. An agency’s showing of
harm, to go beyond the generic, must identify not just any
potential effect on personal privacy, but an invasion that is
“clearly unwarranted.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6).
Because the Park Police does not satisfy the first step of its
burden to show that Exemption 6 applies, we do not proceed to
the balancing inquiry at step two. We thus need not evaluate
the Park Police’s assertions of only de minimis public benefit
from disclosure or its recitation that no court has found the
allegations against the officers to be true.
Our holding under Exemption 6—that the Park Police
failed to make a reasonably detailed showing that disclosure
would compromise a substantial privacy interest—equally
supports a determination of noncompliance with the FOIA
Improvement Act. In the context of other FOIA exemptions,

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we have held that whether a record falls within an exemption
and whether nondisclosure of that record is permissible under
the Improvement Act’s foreseeable harm standard are “distinct,
consecutive inquiries.” Leopold v. U.S. DOJ, 94 F.4th 33, 37
(D.C. Cir. 2024) (Exemption 8); see Reps. Comm. v. FBI, 3
F.4th at 369 (Exemption 5). Here, those formally distinct
inquiries substantively overlap.
The analysis required by the Improvement Act’s
foreseeable-harm rule is much the same as the analysis we
already conducted in holding that the Park Police failed to
make the reasonably detailed showing that disclosure would
compromise a substantial privacy interest required by
Exemption 6. Whether under Exemption 6, or alternatively
under the Improvement Act, “speculative or abstract fears,”
like those the Park Police alludes to in its Vaughn index and
declaration, do not establish a foreseeable harm sufficient to
justify withholding the officer names at issue. Id. (quoting S.
Rep. No. 114-4, at 2 (2015)). The Improvement Act’s other
component—the requirement that agencies take reasonable
steps to release any segregable, non-exempt information, see 5
U.S.C. § 552(a)(8)(A)(ii)—is not at issue here.
HRDC argues that a ruling that the Park Police failed to
justify withholding the officers’ names warrants reversing the
summary judgment order and holding that it is entitled to the
information. For its part, the Park Police asserts that remand to
develop the record, not reversal, would be the appropriate
response to an inadequate showing of foreseeable harm. The
Park Police bases its request on “an interim development in
applicable legal doctrine.” Park Police Br. 16. When it
prepared the affidavits and Vaughn index in support of
summary judgment, the Park Police notes, we had not yet
decided Reporters Committee v. FBI—a case the Park Police
characterizes as having “definitively construed for the first time

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the FOIA Improvement Act’s requirement that in withholding
information an agency must explain how disclosure would
harm an interest protected by a FOIA exemption.” Park Police
Br. 15.
There was no change in the law bearing on this case. It
should have been “apparent from the statutory text alone” that
the Improvement Act requires a “particularized inquiry into
what sort of foreseeable harm would result from the material’s
release.” Reps. Comm. v. FBI, 3 F.4th at 369 n.2. The FOIA
Improvement Act’s foreseeable harm requirement is a
countermeasure against excessive withholding. It compels an
agency to release requested materials unless it can “articulate
both the nature of the harm [from release] and the link between
the specified harm and specific information contained in the
material withheld.” Id. at 369 (alternation in original) (internal
quotation marks omitted). What is more, any new light that
decision may have cast on the Improvement Act is immaterial
given the Park Police’s failure to meet its initial burden under
Exemption 6.
Because the Park Police did not meet its threshold burden
under Exemption 6 and, by the same token, did not demonstrate
that foreseeable harm would ensue from release of the withheld
names, the Park Police was not entitled to summary judgment.
We cannot credit the Park Police’s assertion of a change in
applicable law, and it made no other argument for an
opportunity to supplement its showing of foreseeable harm.
We accordingly reverse and remand for the district court to
enter an order directing the Park Police to remove the
redactions from the officer names in the documents at issue and
release them to HRDC.

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B.
We next review the district court’s clawback order. The
Center contends the court lacked authority to order it not to
disclose, disseminate, or make use of the names of two
settlement claimants that the Park Police failed to redact. As
the district court correctly noted, FOIA does not provide for the
compelled return or destruction of inadvertently produced
information. See generally 5 U.S.C. § 552. The court instead
invoked “implied” or inherent judicial power to create a
mechanism for doing so. HRDC, 2023 WL 5561602, at *6.
The district court’s order was not an exercise of Article III
courts’ well-established authority to manage judicial
proceedings. The Supreme Court has explained that federal
courts are empowered, “by their very creation,” to “impose
silence, respect, and decorum, in their presence, and
submission to their lawful mandates.” Chambers, 501 U.S. at
43 (citing Anderson v. Dunn, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 204, 227
(1821)). Those powers are “governed not by rule or statute but
by the control necessarily vested in courts to manage their own
affairs so as to achieve the orderly and expeditious disposition
of cases.” Id. (quoting Link v. Wabash R. Co., 370 U.S. 626,
630-31 (1962)). “When rules alone do not provide courts with
sufficient authority to protect their integrity and prevent abuses
of the judicial process, the inherent power fills the gap.”
Shepherd v. Am. Broad. Cos., 62 F.3d 1469, 1474 (D.C. Cir.
1995).
In considering whether a court order is a valid application
of inherent judicial authority, we have cautioned that “[a]
judicial claim to an ‘inherent power’ is not to be indulged
lightly, lest it excuse overreaching ‘[t]he judicial Power’
actually granted to federal courts by Article III of the
Constitution of the United States, and the customs and usages

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that inform the meaning of that phrase.” Cobell v. Norton, 334
F.3d 1128, 1141 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (second alteration in original)
(quoting U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 1). The court’s invocation
of an inherent power must therefore “either be documented by
historical practice” or “supported by an irrefutable showing
that the exercise of an undoubted authority would otherwise be
set to naught.” Id.
The Park Police does not contend that there is any
documented historical practice of permitting the government to
claw back information it accidentally disclosed in a FOIA
production. The agency instead argues that the clawback order
was necessary to buttress the district court’s “undoubted
authority” over FOIA litigation. Id. Because the settlement
materials were produced during the court-ordered meet-and-
confer process, the agency argues, the court could bring its full
“corrective authority” to bear to rectify the government’s
redaction errors. Park Police Br. 18-19. And because the court
had ruled that the Park Police was justified in withholding the
claimants’ names under Exemption 6, the agency maintains
that the order appropriately required the Center to assist it in
doing so fully and effectively.
The Park Police’s justifications find no support in our
precedent on courts’ use of inherent authority. The district
court’s order was not necessary to enable the exercise of one of
its “undoubted authorit[ies],” which we have held are limited
to those “which cannot be dispensed with in a Court, because
they are necessary to the exercise of all others.” Cobell, 334
F.3d at 1141 (quoting Chambers, 501 U.S. at 43). Judicial
powers that we have recognized as necessary to the courts’
exercise of their Article III authority include, for example,
authority to admit members to the bar, discipline bar members,
punish contempt of court, vacate judgments based on fraud on

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the court, and punish bad-faith or vexatious conduct. See
Chambers, 501 U.S. at 43-45.
The district court’s clawback order is of a different
species. The court concluded that, because “the claimants’
names are covered by Exemption 6, and there is no discernable
public interest in having the names of private citizens
disclosed,” it was justified in issuing the clawback order.
HRDC, 2023 WL 5561602, at *6. The primary function of the
order, then, was not to support a core judicial authority, but to
fill a perceived hole in the FOIA statute by enabling the
government to put the proverbial cat back in the bag.
On appeal, the Park Police seeks to frame the gap-filling
clawback order as a means of effectuating the court’s judicial
authority under FOIA. The Park Police contends that, once the
Center filed suit in federal court to enforce its entitlement to
disclosure under FOIA, the court could use its inherent
authority to redress the agency’s mistaken disclosures. That
argument cannot be squared with the terms of FOIA and the
structure of its disclosure process. Congress designed FOIA to
function largely without court compulsion. The statute
requires agencies to respond to most FOIA requests within 20
business days. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6). And if the agency
during that administrative stage fails to make intended
redactions, neither FOIA nor any inherent judicial authority
enables it to seek a court order to limit the effects of its error.
Nothing suggests the agency acquires an otherwise absent
clawback remedy just because a FOIA requester resorts to
litigation to enforce an unfulfilled FOIA entitlement. See id.
§ 552(a)(4)(B).
The Park Police draws an analogy to Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 26(b)(5)(B), which requires that a party promptly
“return, sequester, or destroy” information inadvertently

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produced in discovery despite a valid claim of privilege or
protection. The civil discovery rules thereby explicitly address
the risk that, in reviewing and disclosing large volumes of
information, mistakes may be made. The Park Police
acknowledges that Rule 26(b)(5)(B) is inapplicable here yet
contends that “[a] court may address the same problems
inherent in responding to FOIA requests” through a clawback
order. Park Police Br. 21.
But the comparison hurts more than it helps. A provision
akin to Rule 26(b)(5)(B) could have been but was not included
in FOIA. That alone defeats any persuasive effect of the Park
Police’s analogy. Congress presumably acted deliberately in
omitting general clawback authority from FOIA. Unlike
litigation, which is an adversarial process to determine the
parties’ rights and obligations, FOIA is a primarily
administrative regime designed to advance governmental
transparency. Importantly, the information at issue here is not
subject to any independent legal prohibition on disclosure such
as applies to classified documents, and we express no opinion
on how any such prohibition could affect the analysis. See,
e.g., ACLU v. Dep’t of Defense, No. 09-cv-8071, 2012 WL
13075284, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 20, 2012) (noting in support
of return of inadvertently disclosed classified material that
“classified information remains classified notwithstanding
‘any unauthorized disclosure of identical or similar
information’”) (quoting Exec. Order No. 13,526, 75 Fed. Reg.
707 (Dec. 29, 2009)).
We acknowledge that the Tenth Circuit recently upheld a
district court order instructing a FOIA complainant to return or
destroy inadvertently disclosed documents. See Rocky
Mountain Wild, Inc. v. U.S. Forest Serv., 56 F.4th 913, 930-31
(10th Cir. 2022). The Tenth Circuit, however, did not consider

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the important limitations on courts’ inherent authority that
guide our decision today.
Finally, HRDC and its amici curiae also claim that the
First Amendment prevents the district court from barring the
use or dissemination of FOIA-exempt material a FOIA
requester lawfully obtained due to the government’s mistake.
We do not reach that issue because our non-constitutional
analysis is dispositive. See, e.g., In re Fashina, 486 F.3d 1300,
1302-03 (D.C. Cir. 2007).
***
For these reasons, we reverse the district court’s entry of
summary judgment in favor of the Park Police, vacate the
clawback order, and remand for further proceedings consistent
with this opinion.
So ordered.

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