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FOIA Denial Appeal and Litigation Prep
Send the denial letter and the original request, and get each exemption tested against the records described plus the timeline that proves the delay.
River reads the denial letter beside the request that produced it, and treats every exemption the agency asserted as a separate claim that either fits the records you described or does not. Each one gets a row: the exemption, the pages it covers, whether the letter states a harm, whether segregability was addressed, and whether the claim survives on the letter's own terms. Then the clock, rebuilt from the dates in your own file, because a missed deadline is appealable independently of anything the agency withheld.
Every page ranking for this query hands you an appeal letter template. Fill in the agency, the tracking number, the date, then a paragraph asserting that the withholding was improper. That paragraph is the entire problem. An appeal that does not say which exemption is wrong and why gets a form denial back, because nobody has to answer an argument that was never made. The exemptions are the case, and the templates leave the case blank.
Built for reporters, researchers and requesters who have a letter in hand and a decision to make about whether to fight it. Use it the day the denial lands, while the appeal window is still wide. If you have not filed yet, the FOIA request pack writes the request and starts the register. If the release did arrive and it is thousands of unsearchable pages, document dump triage indexes it before you read a line.
Most of what a denial letter asserts is contestable on its own terms
Take request 2026-HQ-00418, an invented file built to a real shape. Filed 8 January 2026. The statute gives the agency 20 days excluding weekends and legal holidays, which lands on 6 February, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day sits inside that window. The agency claimed unusual circumstances, which buys ten more working days and moves the date to 23 February. The response came on 15 June: 79 working days past the extended limit, 158 calendar days for a 46 calendar-day obligation, an overrun of 3.4 times.
The release was 1,927 responsive pages. Of those, 1,247 came in full, 268 arrived redacted and 412 were withheld entirely, so 680 pages carry an exemption claim and 21 percent of the responsive record was never shown at all. The letter asserts four exemptions across those 680 pages: deliberative process on 306, personal privacy on 214, law enforcement privacy on 118 and confidential commercial information on 42. It states a foreseeable harm for exactly one of the four, and names no pages for any of them.
That is where the appeal actually lives. Read claim by claim against the records described, 291 of the 680 pages are plainly covered and 138 are implausible on the face of what was requested. Another 218 hold only if some fact the letter never asserts happens to be true, and 33 sit in withholdings where segregability is never mentioned at all. So 389 pages, 57 percent of everything kept back, are contestable without knowing anything the agency has not already told you. A general appeal argues none of them.
How it works
Send the letter
Attach the denial, the original request and every acknowledgment or interim response in between.
Get the exemption map
One row per exemption claimed, with the pages it reaches and whether it holds on the letter's terms.
Read the clock
The statutory date computed from your filing date, and how far past it the agency actually ran.
Work it in chat
Ask what to concede, what to press, and which items belong in front of a lawyer.
What you get
- Every exemption the letter cited, as its own row, tested against the records you described
- Whether the letter states a foreseeable harm per exemption, which the statute requires of each
- Which withholdings never address segregability, and what that omission is worth on appeal
- The request timeline day by day, with the statutory date computed and the overrun stated
- The appeal argument written exemption by exemption rather than as one general objection
- What the agency has already conceded elsewhere: prior releases, fee decisions, its own letters
- The unresolved items an attorney needs pointed at, separated from what you can argue yourself
Common questions
Why not just use an appeal letter template?
Because the template leaves the argument blank and the argument is the appeal. A letter asserting that records were improperly withheld gives the reviewer nothing to overturn. Naming the exemption, the pages, and the reason it does not fit what you asked for is the difference between a form denial and a release.
The agency simply never responded. Is that appealable?
Yes, and it is often the stronger route. Under 5 U.S.C. 552 a requester is deemed to have exhausted administrative remedies when the agency fails to comply with the time limits, which means the courthouse is open without waiting for a letter that may never come.
What is the deadline the agency actually has?
Twenty days, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and legal public holidays, from receipt of the request. Unusual circumstances allow written notice extending it, and the statute caps that extension at ten working days. In the worked example those two periods total 46 calendar days against a response that took 158.
Can an agency withhold something just because an exemption technically covers it?
Not on its own. The statute permits withholding only where the agency reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm an interest an exemption protects. A letter that recites exemption numbers and never names a harm has skipped that step, which is a specific thing to say on appeal rather than a general complaint.
What is segregability and why does it keep coming up?
Any reasonably segregable portion of a record has to be released even when part of it is exempt, so withholding a whole document requires explaining why nothing in it could be separated out. Thirty-three pages in the worked example sit in withholdings where the letter never addresses this at all.
Does this tell me whether to sue?
No. It assembles the record a lawyer would need to answer that: the timeline with the statutory dates computed, each exemption with its assessment, what the agency conceded in writing, and the specific items nobody could resolve from the documents. The call is the attorney's and the page does not pretend otherwise.
What happens after a release finally arrives?
Usually a second problem. Scanned images and email dumps are common, so the source register records who supplied what and on what terms. If the fight moves to court, court docket tracking follows the filings and recomputes every deadline in the case.
FOIA Denial Appeal and Litigation Prep
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