Here are my two latest updates on the Visa Bulletin case.
From Friday, February 12, 2016:
“Good evening. The government lawyers filed their Motion to Dismiss this evening just under the deadline. You can find the document below. The five lawyers working on the team will be reviewing over the weekend and then we’ll advise on next steps. I can tell you that after reading the document, we are not seeing anything particularly unexpected.”
The Motion to Dismiss can be found at https://www.dropbox.com/s/f54ulhpnp0u5yzy/27.G-MTD.pdf?dl=0.
From Monday, February 15, 2016:
“Many of you want to know what happens next. We are required to submit a Response in Operation to the Motion to Dismiss by March 7th.
Then, we expect to have our first actual day in court on March 11th with oral arguments on the Motion to Dismiss in Seattle.
If the judge rules for us on the Motion to Dismiss, then we’ll get to move in to the discovery phase of the case.
As for what the government argued, the MTD was broken up in to three major sections relating to jurisdiction (does the court have authority to even hear the case), the Administrative Procedures Act (a law that dictates how government agencies are allowed to carry out their responsibilities) and due process (whether protected rights were violated by the government).
Without getting in to the specifics of our strategy, we believe we’ll have solid arguments to counter the government in each of these areas. That’s not to say this is going to be easy. Quite the opposite. The government usually has an advantage in these types of cases with courts often willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. But we are remaining hopeful. Also, remember that if we do not make it past this stage of the case, the FOIA litigation continues on a separate track.”