Marker v. Cardona
- Jacquelyn Corley
- 3:23-cv-05873
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Marker v. Cardona, Judge Corley dismissed Tania T. Marker’s FOIA complaint with leave to amend because Cardona was not a proper defendant and facts were insufficient.
Tania T. Marker’s FOIA action against Dr. Migel Cardona was dismissed, but she was allowed to amend her complaint by December 15, 2023.
What happened
In Marker v. Cardona, Tania T. Marker, representing herself, sued Dr. Migel Cardona under the Freedom of Information Act, claiming the government did not properly respond to her request for student-loan records.
The court dismissed the complaint because an individual official is not a proper defendant in a Freedom of Information Act case and because Marker did not provide enough facts about her administrative appeal or the information missing from the response. The court allowed her to file an amended complaint by December 15, 2023.
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ruled that the complaint was dismissed with leave to amend. The court stated that if Marker did not amend by the deadline, the action would be dismissed with prejudice.
The detailed version
- Marker v. Cardona · No. 3:23-cv-05873
- Jacquelyn Corley
- Nov. 16, 2023
Background
Tania T. Marker, representing herself, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) action against Dr. Migel Cardona. She alleged that Cardona failed to comply with FOIA requirements after she requested records concerning federal or federally guaranteed student loans, including applications, payment histories, completed financial-aid forms, consolidations, and ombudsman disputes.
Marker alleged that she submitted the request on February 4, 2022, appealed the lack of a response on August 12, 2022, received an email response on August 15, 2022, and later received a compact disc that her home technology could not access. She brought claims for an inadequate search, improper withholding of non-exempt records, and failure to meet FOIA’s statutory deadline.
The court had already granted Marker permission to proceed without paying the filing fee and then screened the complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915.
Reasons for Dismissal
The court held that an individual official is not a proper defendant in a FOIA action. Because Cardona was sued as an individual officer, the court dismissed the claims against him and instructed Marker that a FOIA claim should be brought against the agency rather than an individual agency member.
The court also found that Marker had not alleged enough facts to support her FOIA claims. Although she stated that she had appealed the absence of a response and later asserted that she had exhausted her administrative appeal remedy, she did not describe the appeal process, explain the response to her appeal, or provide its outcome. The court advised her to include those details in any amended complaint.
The court further found that the complaint was unclear about what information was missing from the agency’s response and whether Marker had requested the records in a particular format. The court advised her to explain how she requested the information and what happened after she received the compact disc.
Disposition
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley dismissed the complaint with leave to amend. Marker was permitted to file an amended complaint by December 15, 2023. The court stated that if she did not file an amended complaint by that date, the action would be dismissed with prejudice.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.