Hamilton Securities Group Inc. v. Department of Housing & Urban Development

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• concluding draft audit report was predecisional because it predated and contributed to the final audit report
• holding drafts fell under deliberative process privilege despite knowing that OIG’s audit process included receiving two rounds of auditee comments
• holding draft audit report was deliberative because it “d[id] not merely involve the collection and compilation of publicly available data,” but rather, “judgments about what to collect, how to collect, and how to present it”
• rejecting argument that document was not protected by deliberative process privilege because it was created “in the routine course of business”
• “To the extent that predecisional materials, even if ‘factual’ in form, reflect an agency’s preliminary positions or ruminations about how to exercise discretion on some policy matter, they are protected under Exemption 5.”
• “[Pjurely factual material that is segregable from opinion material is generally not protected.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).