Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-01-05206/USCOURTS-caDC-01-05206-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 895
Nature of Suit: Freedom of Information Act of 1974
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 5, 2002 Decided November 22, 2002

No. 01-5206

Neil Johnson,

Appellant

v.

Executive Office for United States Attorneys and

Bonnie L. Gay, Acting Assistant Director, Executive Office

for United States Attorneys,

Appellees

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 98cv00729)

Kristen Flynn, appointed by the court, argued the cause as

amicus curiae on behalf of the appellant. With her on the

briefs was William B. Schultz.

Neil Johnson filed briefs pro se.

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Michael J. Ryan, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Roscoe C.

Howard, Jr., U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney.

Before: Ginsburg, Chief Judge, and Sentelle and

Randolph, Circuit Judges.

Sentelle, Circuit Judge: Pursuant to the Freedom of

Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. s 552 (2000), Neil Johnson

seeks to compel the release of documents pertaining to his

criminal conviction withheld by the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA). EOUSA withheld, in whole

or in part, a number of records under exemption 7(C), which

permits the agency to do so to protect the privacy interests of

other parties named in the record. s 552 (b)(7)(C). Johnson

argues that EOUSA is required to take steps to determine

whether these parties are alive or dead in order to claim this

exemption properly, and to provide a more complete explanation for the non-segregability of documents withheld in full.

The district court granted the government's motion for summary judgment on the merits, upholding the agency's invocation of the FOIA exemptions. Because we find that the

agency took sufficient steps to investigate information affecting the privacy interests of the individuals, and because the

agency's affidavits and the district court's finding on the issue

of segregability satisfy the requirements of 552(b), we affirm

the district court's grant of summary judgment. Johnson

also seeks reinstatement of his claim for constitutional damages against EOUSA attorney Bonnie Gay, which the district

court dismissed for failure to state a claim. Because the

district court properly concluded that FOIA precludes courts

from fashioning a damage remedy under Bivens, we affirm.

I. Background

In July of 1996, Appellant, Neil Johnson, then incarcerated,

submitted a request under FOIA, s 552, to EOUSA, for all

records pertaining to himself. EOUSA received this request

on July 30, 1996. In response to a request from EOUSA,

Johnson stated that his records were located in the United

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States Attorney's Office (USAO) for the District of Connecticut. On September 13, EOUSA informed him that his request was complete and contacted the United States Attorney's Office in Connecticut. On April 24, 1997, EOUSA

informed Johnson through a letter from Bonnie Gay, an

EOUSA attorney with responsibilities for FOIA, that the

records he requested totaled over 6,000 pages of material and

that a $250.00 deposit would be needed before duplication

could begin. In response, Johnson sent a request for a

verification of the volume of his records and indicated that he

did not wish to receive any trial transcripts. Before EOUSA

responded to this request, Johnson sent a money order for

$250.00. On August 26, EOUSA informed him that his

money order had been received, that it had received two

boxes of responsive documents from the Connecticut USAO,

and that he would be refunded any difference between actual

costs and the advance fee.

Johnson heard nothing further from EOUSA, even after

sending a letter in late November 1997, informing EOUSA of

his plan to seek legal redress if he did not receive at least

some of the requested documents within fourteen days. True

to his word, Johnson filed a complaint on March 23, 1998, in

the United States District Court for the District of Columbia

against EOUSA and Bonnie Gay, in her individual and official

capacities, seeking release of the requested documents, a

declaration that the defendants' actions violated his constitutional rights, compensatory and punitive damages, and costs.

During May 1998, EOUSA consulted with the FBI on the

release of twenty-five pages of documents. The FBI withheld

seven of those pages in full. On July 9, 1998, EOUSA made a

partial release of the documents. At the same time, it

informed Johnson that he would be reimbursed the $250.00

and that some of the records he requested were being

withheld pursuant to FOIA exemptions 3, 5, 7(C), and 7(D), 5

U.S.C. s 552(b)(3), (b)(5), (b)(7)(C), and (b)(7)(D), and provided him with a Vaughn index. See Vaughn v. Rosen, 484 F.2d

820, 826-28 (D.C. Cir. 1973). On the same day, EOUSA

referred 338 pages to the United States Customs Service, the

Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Criminal Division of the

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Department of Justice for review and direct response.

EOUSA mailed Johnson a refund of $250.00 on January 4,

2000.

Johnson first informed EOUSA of the possible deaths of

two persons identified in some of the withheld documents,

Carlos Jacaman and Raul Rivera, in his July 10, 2000 opposition to EOUSA's motion for summary judgment. At that

point Teresa Davis, another EOUSA attorney, attempted to

confirm the status of Jacaman and Rivera by contacting state

and federal probation offices in Connecticut, at Johnson's

suggestion, as well as the United States Customs Service and

the Social Security Administration. These attempts were not

ultimately successful, and to date, neither EOUSA nor Johnson has been able to locate the social security numbers of

either Jacaman or Rivera or to confirm if either is still alive.

On May 4, 2000, the district court granted the government's motion to dismiss the complaint against Bonnie Gay

for lack of proper service and failure to state a claim. Johnson v. EOUSA, No. 98-729, slip op. (D.D.C.). Johnson filed a

notice of appeal from that ruling, but decided it was premature, and this Court dismissed that appeal for lack of prosecution on October 25, 2000. Johnson v. EOUSA, No. 00-5229

(D.C. Cir. 2000). On April 2, 2001, the district court granted

the government's motion for summary judgment on the merits, Johnson v. EOUSA, No. 98-729, slip op. (D.D.C.), first

noting that several of Johnson's arguments were mooted by

the return of his $250.00, the release of his pre-sentence

report and the response of both sides to summary judgment

motions not correctly received by the parties. After noting

that Johnson had not challenged the withholding of documents under exemption 7(D), the district court held that

EOUSA's withholding of documents both as non-responsive to

appellant's request and under FOIA exemptions 3, 5 and 7(C)

was proper. Finally, the district court ruled that EOUSA

had performed an adequate segregability analysis to satisfy

the requirements of s 552(b). The appellant appealed from

the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of

EOUSA, and from the district court's dismissal of the complaint against Bonnie Gay.

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II. Analysis

Grant of Summary Judgment for EOUSA

This Court reviews the district court's grant of summary

judgment de novo. Nation Magazine v. United States Customs Serv., 71 F.3d 885, 889 (D.C. Cir. 1995). De novo review

of an agency's compliance with FOIA requires this Court to

"ascertain whether the agency has sustained its burden of

demonstrating that the documents requested ... are exempt

from disclosure under the FOIA." Summers v. DOJ, 140

F.3d 1077, 1080 (D.C. Cir. 1998). An agency may meet this

burden by providing the requester with a Vaughn index,

which must adequately describe each withheld document,

state which exemption the agency claims for each withheld

document, and explain the exemption's relevance. See id. In

this case, EOUSA provided a Vaughn index which stated in

some detail the documents withheld, and the various exemptions on which it relied. Johnson's complaint is primarily

focused on the adequacy of EOUSA's reliance on FOIA

exemption 7(C), which permits the agency to withhold information contained in a law enforcement record that "could

reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion

of personal privacy." s 552(b)(7)(C).

Johnson challenges the agency's contention that the privacy

interests of other persons named in the records he requested

compel the withholding of those records. He argues that

because the agency must balance the privacy interests of

individuals named in the records with the public interest in

their release when deciding whether exemption 7(C) is applicable, the agency was required to take steps to determine

whether the privacy interests of those individuals had been

diminished by their deaths. In his opposition to EOUSA's

motion for summary judgment, Johnson stated that he had

personal knowledge that at least two persons named in his

records, Carlos Jacaman and Raul Rivera, had been suffering

from the AIDS virus prior to his 1994 trial, and therefore

might have been dead when EOUSA claimed the 7(C) exemption based at least in part on their privacy interests.

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In response to this information, EOUSA attorney Teresa

Davis took actions to verify the status of Jacaman and Rivera.

In her search concerning Jacaman, she contacted the U.S.

Customs Office in Connecticut, where a customs investigator

directed her to the Customs Headquarters in Washington,

D.C., which maintains informant files. In turn, she contacted

the D.C. office, which informed her that the Social Security

Administration (SSA) could provide her with the information

she sought. She called the SSA, identified herself as an

attorney with the Department of Justice and was told that the

SSA could not retrieve information regarding a person's

status unless she provided a social security number, and that

even if she had the number, and regardless of the official

nature of her inquiry, she would probably not be provided

with that information. She also searched for Jacaman's social

security number and could not locate it. At Johnson's suggestion, Davis contacted the District of Connecticut United

States Probation Office, in order to try and locate Rivera.

She was informed that he was no longer under their supervision, and they had no record of his whereabouts. She also

contacted the State of Connecticut Probation Office, and was

met with the same response. Despite the efforts of Davis,

EOUSA was unable to verify the status of either Jacaman or

Rivera.

Johnson claims that the actions Davis took do not meet the

"basic steps" required of an agency withholding information

based on an exemption 7(C) privacy interest, under the rule

of Schrecker v. DOJ, 254 F.3d 162, 167 (D.C. Cir. 2001). In

Schrecker, this Court recognized that the death of an individual whose privacy interest provides the rationale for a 7(C)

FOIA exemption is a relevant factor in the balancing in which

the agency engages when it determines whether to withhold

or release the material. Id. at 166-67. However, the Court

refrained from establishing specific steps that an agency must

follow to establish an individual's status before proceeding to

balance the interests, finding simply that

Without confirmation that the Government took certain

basic steps to ascertain whether an individual was dead

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or alive, we are unable to say whether the Government

reasonably balanced the interests in personal privacy

against the public interest in release of the information

at issue.

Id. at 167.

That is not the situation before us. The record shows, and

no one disputes, that once Davis and EOUSA became aware

of the possibility that Jacaman and Rivera might be dead,

Davis took a number of steps to determine their status, albeit

without success. The record documents these efforts in the

form of Davis's affidavit. Therefore, because we find that

EOUSA's efforts to determine whether Raul Rivera and

Carlos Jacaman were alive or dead were sufficient to meet its

obligation to take "basic steps" to investigate information that

could affect the privacy interests at stake, we affirm the

district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of

EOUSA regarding this challenge to EOUSA's reliance on

exemption 7(C). We will not attempt to establish a brightline set of steps for an agency to take in this situation.

FOIA, requiring as it does both systemic and case-specific

exercises of discretion and administrative judgment and expertise, is hardly an area in which the courts should attempt

to micro manage the executive branch.

In addition, we find that the government's affidavits and

the district court's ruling on the issue of segregability satisfy

the requirements of 5 U.S.C. s 552(b) and the precedent of

this circuit. Johnson claims that the Vaughn index EOUSA

provided offered insufficient justification for its claim that

none of the withheld documents could reasonably be segregated for release. Johnson furthers argues that the affidavits

of two EOUSA attorneys, Gay and Davis, contained only

insufficient, conclusory statements on the segregability of

these documents, and the district court erred when it did not

make specific findings on the segregability of these documents. We disagree.

FOIA s 552(b) requires that even if some materials from

the requested record are exempt from disclosure, any "reasonably segregable" information from those documents must

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be disclosed after redaction of the exempt information unless

the exempt portions are "inextricably intertwined with exempt portions." 5 U.S.C. s 552(b); Mead Data Cent., Inc. v.

Dep't of the Air Force, 566 F.2d 242, 260 (D.C. Cir. 1977); see

also Trans-Pacific Policing Agreement v. United States Customs Serv., 177 F.3d 1022, 1028 (D.C. Cir. 1999). In order to

demonstrate that all reasonably segregable material has been

released, the agency must provide a "detailed justification"

for its non-segregability. Mead Data, 566 F.2d at 261. However, the agency is not required to provide so much detail

that the exempt material would be effectively disclosed. Id.

Here, EOUSA provided Johnson with a comprehensive

Vaughn index, describing each document withheld, as well as

the exemption under which it was withheld. In addition,

after this Court's decision in Trans-Pacific, Davis submitted

a supplemental affidavit in order to further address the issue

of segregability. In that statement, Davis explained that she

personally conducted a line-by-line review of each document

withheld in full and determined that "no documents contained

releasable information which could be reasonably segregated

from the nonreleasable portions." The combination of the

Vaughn index and the affidavits of Gay and Davis are sufficient to fulfill the agency's obligation to show with "reasonable specificity" why a document cannot be further segregated. See Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 97

F.3d 575, 578-579 (D.C. Cir. 1996).

In addition, the district court, citing this Court's decision in

Trans-Pacific, fulfilled its obligation to make a specific finding on the issue of segregability. In Trans-Pacific, we held

that a district court has the obligation to consider the segregability issue sua sponte, regardless of whether it has been

raised by the parties, noting that we had many times remanded in cases where the district court had failed to rule on

segregability. 177 F.3d at 1028.

When the district court in this case considered the issue of

segregability, it stated the following in its opinion:

On review of the Vaughn Index, the various Declarations, and Plaintiff's objections, the Court is satisfied that

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the Defendant conducted an appropriate search of the

records in which references to Plaintiff are likely to exist

and that all relevant documents have been produced,

with the exception of segregable portions that are exempt from disclosure.

Johnson v. EOUSA, No. 98-729, slip op. at 11 (D.D.C. April 2,

2001).

In two other instances in the course of the opinion, the

district court found specifically that indexed documents were

properly withheld when they were described as nonsegregable, and accepted Davis's conclusion as to the nonsegregability of portions of other documents. Because we

perceive no error in the findings of the district court that the

affidavits of Davis and Gay are sufficient to meet the segregability requirements of s 552(b) and our previous cases, we

affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment.

Dismissal of the Complaint Against Bonnie Gay for Failure to State a Claim

Turning to the district court's dismissal of the claim against

Bonnie Gay, we begin by noting that this Court reviews de

novo the dismissal of a complaint for failure to state a claim,

accepting the plaintiff's factual allegations as true and drawing all inferences in the plaintiff's favor. Toolasprashad v.

Bureau of Prisons, 286 F.3d 576, 580 (D.C. Cir. 2002).

Johnson's complaint attempted to state a constitutional claim

for damages against Gay, alleging that her mishandling of the

FOIA request violated his constitutional right to due process

under the Fifth Amendment. Johnson argues that this violation demands the implementation of a Bivens-type remedy.

See Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388

(1971). It is clear that courts are precluded from granting

such relief if the statute at issue provides a "comprehensive

system to administer public rights." Spagnola v. Mathis, 859

F.2d 223, 228 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (en banc). The district court

refused to fashion such a remedy for Johnson because it

found that FOIA represents just such a comprehensive

scheme, which provides requesters with the potential for

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injunctive relief only, either to enjoin the withholding of

documents or to compel production of agency records. See 5

U.S.C. s 552 (a)(4)(B); Johnson v. EOUSA, No. 98-729, slip

op. at 5-6 (D.D.C. May 4, 2000). Because we agree with the

district court that the comprehensiveness of FOIA precludes

the creation of a Bivens remedy, and because Johnson's

claims are not otherwise actionable, we affirm the district

court's dismissal of the claim against Gay.

III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the steps

taken by EOUSA to determine the status of Jacaman and

Rivera were sufficient to meet its obligation to investigate

information that could affect the privacy interest at stake, and

that the government's affidavits and the district court's findings on segregability satisfy the requirements of FOIA. For

those reasons, we affirm the district court's grant of summary

judgment in favor of EOUSA regarding the challenge to its

reliance on exemption 7(C). Finally, because FOIA embodies

the type of statutory scheme that precludes courts from

fashioning damage remedies under Bivens, we affirm the

district court's dismissal of Johnson's constitutional claim.

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