Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-94-01300/USCOURTS-ca10-94-01300-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Sheet Metal Workers International Association, Local No. 9
Appellee
United States Air Force
Appellant

Document Text:

PUBLISH FILED , Ualted States Court~~ Appea:s Tenth Clreuat 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS AUG 2 5 1995 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

SHEET METAL WORKERS INTERNATIONAL 

ASSOCIATION, LOCAL NO. 9, 

Plaintiff - Appellee, 

v. 

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE, 

Defendant - Appellant. 

PATRICK FISHER -- Clerk 

No. 94-1300 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO 

(D.C. NO. 93-M-429) 

John F. Daly, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. (Frank W. 

Hunger, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice, 

Washington, D.C.; Henry L. Solano, United States Attorney, Denver, 

Colorado; and Leonard Schaitman, Department of Justice, 

Washington, D.C., with him on the briefs), for Appellant. 

Patrick J. Riley, Sheet Metal Workers' International Association, 

Washington, D.C. (Walter C. Brauer III, Brauer, Buescher, 

Valentine, Goldhammer & Kelman, Denver, Colorado, with him on the 

brief), for Appellee. 

Before ANDERSON, and McKAY, Circuit Judges, and COOK,* District 

Judge. 

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge. 

* The Honorable H. Dale Cook, Senior Judge, United States 

District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, sitting by 

designation. 

Appellate Case: 94-1300 Document: 01019279642 Date Filed: 08/25/1995 Page: 1 
This appeal presents a single issue: whether exemption 6 or 

exemption 7(C) of the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"), 5 

U.S.C. § 552 (b) (6) or 5 U.S.C. § 552 (b) (7) (C), prohibits the 

release to a union of the names of employees who work for 

companies performing government contracts.1 We hold that it does. 

We therefore reverse the grant of summary judgment to the 

plaintiff union. 

BACKGROUND 

Plaintiff-appellee Sheet Metal Workers' International 

Association Local Union No. 9 ("Union") is a labor union. It 

monitors union and non-union sheet metal contractors who work on 

government construction projects. In particular, it monitors 

compliance with wage requirements, and ensures that sheet metal 

contractors are working with the prevailing ratio of journeymen to 

apprentices and that workers are appropriately classified for the 

work they perform. 

The Union requested from defendant-appellant the United 

States Department of the Air Force all certified payroll records 

submitted by two particular contractors who were working on an Air 

Force Academy construction project. The project was subject to 

the Davis-Bacon Act, 40 U.S.C. § 276a, which requires that workers 

employed on federal construction projects be paid wages at the 

1 Initially, there were two appeals in this case, one involving 

the merits of the propriety of the disclosure and one involving an 

award of attorneys' fees made to the plaintiff. The parties have 

stipulated to the dismissal of appeal No. 94-1436, which related 

solely to the award of attorneys' fees and costs. 

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rate prevailing for similar workers in the project area, and the 

Copeland Anti-Kickback Act, 40 U.S.C. § 276c, which provides for 

monitoring and enforcement of the Davis-Bacon Act. The Copeland 

Act requires, inter alia, that contractors regularly submit 

certified payroll records to the contracting agency, listing each 

worker's name, address, social security number, job classification, hourly pay, hours worked, wages, fringe benefits, and 

deductions. See 29 C.F.R. §§ 3.3, 3.4. The Union also sought 

copies of all apprentice registration forms for one of the 

contractors. 

The Air Force denied the request entirely, relying on 

exemption 6 of FOIA, which protects from disclosure "personnel 

files . . . the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly 

unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." 5 U.S.C. § 552(b) (6). 

The Union filed an administrative appeal, which was denied in part 

and granted in part, and resulted in the release of the apprentice 

registration lists with individual names redacted, as well as the 

release of other information not in dispute in this appeal. The 

Air Force continued to refuse to release the payroll records. 

The Union then brought this FOIA action, seeking release of 

the payroll records and the apprentice registration lists with 

names. The Air Force filed a motion to dismiss, which was 

referred to a magistrate judge, who recommended denial of the 

motion. The district court adopted that recommendation. Both 

parties thereafter filed motions for summary judgment, which were 

again referred to the magistrate judge, who recommended release of 

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the payroll records with all personal identifiers redacted, and 

recommended release of the apprentice registration forms. 

The district court thereafter ordered that the Air Force 

release to the Union "the certified payroll records and apprentice 

registration forms described in the Union's FOIA request, with the 

following information for each employee redacted: home address, 

social security number, withholding exemptions, withholding tax, 

FICA, and net wages paid." Mem. and Order at 7, Appellant's App. 

at 262. Significantly for this appeal, the Air Force was required 

to turn over employee names. The Air Force appeals the district 

court's order, "only insofar as [it] require[s] release of 

individual names." Appellant's Br. at 3. 

DISCUSSION 

"The Freedom of Information Act was enacted to facilitate 

public access to Government documents." United States Dep't of 

State v. Ray, 502 u.s. 164, 173 (1991). Accordingly, 

the strong presumption in favor of disclosure places the 

burden on the agency to justify the withholding of any 

requested documents. That burden remains with the 

agency when it seeks to justify the redaction of 

identifying information in a particular document as well 

as when it seeks to withhold an entire document. 

Id. (citations omitted). Public access to government information 

is not, however, "all-encompassing." Hale v. United States Dep't 

of Justice, 973 F.2d 894, 898 (lOth Cir. 1992), vacated on other 

grounds, 113 S. Ct. 3029 (1993). Access is permitted "only to 

information that sheds light upon the government's performance of 

its duties." Hale, 973 F.2d at 898. 

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Appellate Case: 94-1300 Document: 01019279642 Date Filed: 08/25/1995 Page: 4 
FOIA contains nine specific exemptions from disclosure. Two 

are claimed to be relevant to this case: exemption 6 prohibiting 

the disclosure of information in "personnel and medical files and 

similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly 

unwarranted invasion of privacy," 5 U.S.C. § 552(b) (6); and 

exemption ?(C) prohibiting the disclosure of "records or 

information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the 

extent that the production of such law enforcement records or 

information . could reasonably be expected to constitute an 

unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." 5 U.S.C. § 552(7) (C). 

Exemption ?(C) provides greater protection from disclosure than 

exemption 6. United States Dep't of Justice v. Reporters Comm. 

for Freedom of the Press, 489 U.S. 749, 756 (1989). 

To determine whether either exemption prevents disclosure, we 

must "'balance the public interest in disclosure against the 

interest Congress intended the [e]xemption to protect.'" United 

States Dep't of Defense v. Federal Labor Relations Auth., 114 

S. Ct. 1006, 1012 (1994) (quoting Reporters Comm., 489 U.S. at 

776) (alteration in original); see Federal Labor Relations Auth. 

v. United States Dep't of Defense, 984 F.2d 370, 374 (lOth Cir. 

1993); Andrews v. Veterans Admin., 838 F.2d 418, 423 n.8 (lOth 

Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 817 (1988). The Court has narrowly 

defined the "public interest" in FOIA disclosures, as "the extent 

to which disclosure would serve the 'core purpose of the FOIA,' 

which is 'contribut[ing] significantly to the public understanding 

of the operations or activities of the government.'" Federal 

Labor Relations Auth., 114 S. Ct. at 1012 (quoting Reporters 

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Appellate Case: 94-1300 Document: 01019279642 Date Filed: 08/25/1995 Page: 5 
Comm., 489 U.S. at 775) (alteration in original). The "privacy 

interest" protected from unwarranted invasion by exemptions 6 and 

7(C) encompasses "the individual's control of information 

concerning his or her person." Reporters Comm., 489 U.S. at 763. 

Further, the Court reiterated in Federal Labor Relations Auth. 

that "'whether an invasion of privacy is warranted cannot turn on 

the purposes for which the request for information is made.'" 114 

s. Ct. at 1013 (quoting Reporters Comm., 489 U.S. at 771). 

Thus, in this case, we must balance the privacy interest of 

the workers in nondisclosure of their names, against the "extent 

to which disclosure of the information sought would 'she[d] light 

on an agency's performance of its statutory duties' or otherwise 

let citizens know 'what their government is up to.'" Id. (quoting 

Reporters Comm., 489 U.S. at 773) (alteration in original). FOIA 

exemptions must be "narrowly construed." Department of the Air 

Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 361 (1976). 

In this case, we review the grant of summary judgment to the 

party seeking disclosure--i.e., the Union. While there may be 

some disagreement among other courts as to the precise standard of 

review of a grant of summary judgment in a FOIA case,2 our court 

2 The Third and Ninth Circuits state that they apply a "twotiered" test to the grant of summary judgment in a FOIA case: 

"The reviewing court must first decide whether the district court 

had an adequate factual basis for its determination . . . [and, if 

so,] it must then decide whether that determination was clearly 

erroneous." McDonnell v. United States, 4 F.3d 1227, 1242 (3d 

Cir. 1993); see also Painting Indus. of Haw. Mkt. Recovery Fund v. 

United States Dep't of Air Force, 26 F.3d 1479, 1482 (9th Cir. 

1994). The D.C. Circuit has explicitly adhered to the ordinary 

appellate standard of review for summary judgment motions, bearing 

in mind that "the 'burden is on the agency' to show that requested 

material falls within a FOIA exemption." Petroleum Info. Corp. v. 

(continued on next page) 

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reviews de novo any legal determinations made by the district 

court, once we have assured ourselves that the district court "had 

an adequate factual basis upon which to base its decision." 

Anderson v. Department of Health and Human Servs., 907 F.2d 936, 

942 (lOth Cir. 1990); see also KTVY-TV v. United States, 919 F.2d 

1465, 1468 (lOth Cir. 199 0) (per curiam) . 

The Union claims that the release of payroll records and 

apprentice lists, with names, would shed light on the Air Force's 

compliance with the Davis-Bacon Act. The Air Force relies heavily 

upon three circuit court opinions which have uniformly held that 

the release of payroll records with names and addresses of workers 

employed on government contracts constitutes a clearly unwarranted 

invasion of privacy under exemption 6 to FOIA. See Painting 

Indus. of Haw. Mkt. Recovery Fund v. United States Dep't of Air 

Force, 26 F.3d 1479 (9th Cir. 1994); Painting & Drywall Work 

Preservation Fund v. HUD, 936 F.2d 1300 (D.C. Cir. 1991); Hopkins 

v. HUD, 929 F.2d 81 (2d Cir. 1991). The Union responds that those 

cases are distinguishable because they involved the disclosure of 

names and addresses, whereas this case only involves the 

disclosure of names, and those cases did not involve apprentice 

registration lists. Finding no principled basis upon which to 

(continued from previous page) 

United States Dep't of Interior, 976 F.2d 1429, 1433 (D.C. Cir. 

1992) (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 552(a) (4) (B)). However, the Third 

Circuit recognizes that it affords "plenary review of issues of 

law." McDonnell, 4 F.3d at 1242. 

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distinguish the rationale of those three decisions, we reverse the 

decision of the district court. 

The Second, Ninth, and District of Columbia Circuits all 

began their analyses by recognizing a substantial privacy interest 

in personal identifying information, such as names and addresses, 

"particularly where, as here, the names and addresses would be 

coupled with personal financial information." Hopkins, 929 F.2d 

at 87; see Painting Indus., 26 F.3d at 1484 (" [W]orkers on 

federally-funded construction projects have a substantial privacy 

interest in information tying their names and addresses to precise 

payroll figures."); Painting and Drywall Work Preservation Fund, 

Inc., 936 F.2d 1302-03; Aronson v. IRS, 767 F. Supp. 378, 389 n.14 

(D. Mass. 1991) ("more meaningful question is whether inclusion of 

the address in the context of the particular requested record 

raises significant privacy concerns"), aff'd in part, rev'd in 

part, 973 F.2d 962 (1st Cir. 1992). 

This conclusion rests both on the Supreme Court's broad 

definition of privacy in Reporters Comm. and Federal Labor 

Relations Auth., and the wide range of use to which such 

information--"a list of people engaged in the construction trade, 

broken into their particular occupational classification," 

Painting Indus., 26 F.3d at 1483--could be put by others besides 

the particular requester. We agree with the Air Force that the 

redaction of addresses alone, leaving names on the payroll records 

and thereby directly linking detailed financial information about 

workers on a particular federal construction project to those 

workers, does not materially lessen the substantial privacy 

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interest involved. And while there may be less information 

conveyed on apprentice registration forms than on certified 

payroll records, those forms also reveal "a list of people engaged 

in the construction trade," id., in a particular area, and 

therefore also implicate a substantial privacy interest. 

Having determined that the Union's FOIA request implicates a 

substantial privacy interest, "we now consider whether FOIA 

recognizes a public interest in disclosure that might outweigh the 

intrusion that such disclosure would bring about." Painting 

Indus., 26 F.3d at 1484. The Supreme Court has stated that the 

public interest served by FOIA is the interest in letting citizens 

know "what their government is up to." Reporters Comm., 489 U.S. 

at 773. It does not encompass an interest in the "disclosure of 

information about private citizens that is accumulated in various 

governmental files but that reveals little or nothing about an 

agency's own conduct." Id. 

In this case, the Union argues that the release of payroll 

records and apprentice registration forms with names will reveal 

whether the Air Force is properly monitoring compliance by the 

private contractors with the Davis-Bacon Act, including permitting 

the Union more efficiently to track that compliance week by week. 

This argument has been presented to and rejected by the Second, 

Ninth and District of Columbia Circuits. While recognizing that 

circuits disagree about the propriety and relevance of arguments 

relating to the "derivative use" of information sought under 

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Appellate Case: 94-1300 Document: 01019279642 Date Filed: 08/25/1995 Page: 9 
FOIA,3 the Ninth Circuit has rejected the application of any such 

derivative use argument to employee payroll records cases because 

"the additional step requires direct contact with the employees 

whose payroll records are being sought. Any additional public 

benefit the requesters might realize through those contacts is 

inextricably intertwined with the invasions of privacy that those 

contacts will work." Painting Indus., 26 F.3d at 1485. The 

Second and District of Columbia Circuits have similarly held that 

any such public interest is too "attenuated" to outweigh the 

identified and substantial privacy interest involved. Painting 

and Drywall Work Preservation Fund, 936 F.2d at 1300; Hopkins, 929 

F.2d at 88. The same rationale applies here: the attenuated 

public interest in disclosure of payroll records and apprentice 

registration forms with names attached does not outweigh the 

substantial privacy interest of the workers in that information. 

Cf. Reporters Comm., 489 U.S. at 765 ("[D]isclosure of records 

regarding private citizens, identifiable by name, is not what the 

framers of the FOIA had in mind."). 

In sum, three circuits have held that employees of private 

contractors performing federal construction projects have a 

3 As the District of Columbia Circuit has described it, 

"derivative use" encompasses the situation where "'the names of 

current workers might provide leads for an investigative reporter 

seeking to ferret out what "government is up to."'" Painting and 

Drywall Work Preservation Fund, 936 F.2d at 1303 (quoting Federal 

Labor Relations Auth. v. United States Dep't of the Treasury, 884 

F.2d 1446, 1452 (D.C. Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 493 u.s. 1055 

(1990)). The Supreme Court has declined to rule on whether such 

"derivative use" is relevant to FOIA balancing. Ray, 502 U.S. at 

178-79. 

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substantial privacy interest in personal financial information 

with personal identifiers linking the individual to the financial 

information. They have further held that that interest outweighs 

any recognized public interest in the disclosure of such 

information. Whether viewed as relevant to the magnitude of the 

privacy interest at issue, or to the appropriate balance between 

that interest and the public interest in disclosure, we see no 

principled distinction between names alone as personal 

identifiers, or names and addresses. Either one provides the 

critical connection between personal information and the 

individual to whom that information relates. 

Because we hold that exemption 6 protects the information 

sought from disclosure, we need not address whether the more 

protective provisions of exemption ?(C) would also prevent 

disclosure of that information. We therefore REVERSE the decision 

of the district court and REMAND for further proceedings 

consistent herewith. 

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