Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/993/570/310637/
Timestamp: 2020-02-27 11:48:54
Document Index: 46024522

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 552', '§ 552', '§ 1918', '§ 7311', '§ 552', '§ 552', '§ 552', '§ 552', '§ 552']

Dan M. Norwood, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Federal Aviation Administration, Defendant-appellant, 993 F.2d 570 (6th Cir. 1993) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Sixth Circuit › 1993 › Dan M. Norwood, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Federal Aviation Administration, Defendant-appellant
Dan M. Norwood, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Federal Aviation Administration, Defendant-appellant, 993 F.2d 570 (6th Cir. 1993)
US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit - 993 F.2d 570 (6th Cir. 1993) Argued March 16, 1993. Decided May 21, 1993. As Amended on Consideration of Petitionfor Rehearing with Suggestion forRehearing En Banc July 9, 1993. Rehearing and Suggestion forRehearing En Banc DeniedAug. 12, 1993
This appeal arises out of the efforts of some 200 air traffic controllers fired for participating in a 1981 strike to obtain Federal Aviation Administration files on other controllers who were reinstated through settlement. The district court rejected most of FAA's justifications for withholding information under the Freedom of Information Act's exemptions for matters of personal privacy, 5 U.S.C. § 552(b) (6), and for deliberative and attorney work product materials, id. at § 552(b) (5). We partly affirm and partly reverse.Background
In August of 1981 some 11,000 air traffic controllers participated in a strike by the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) against the United States. Such conduct constitutes not only a felony, 18 U.S.C. § 1918, but cause for termination of federal employment, 5 U.S.C. § 7311. Very promptly, all controllers were removed. Virtually all appealed their removals to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). Thereupon FAA reacted to each case, creating "adverse action files" of data and recommendations, and files relating to settlement. Several hundred controllers won their appeals and were ordered reinstated. Another 123 settled their cases during the appeals process and were reinstated. According to FAA, it "reinstated those it believe [s] did not willingly strike, but stayed out because of coercion or valid personal reasons." FAA Brief at 14 (emphasis in original).
FAA balked at turning over "adverse action files" that were created for each controller who appealed his removal. These files included a response to issues raised by an appellant, any grievance against the agency, the appellant's written or "personal" reply to the proposed adverse action, and the " [e]vidence supporting the action taken." Third Declaration, Exhibit A. The agency, in its Second Declaration, argued that this material did not fall within the FOIA request for documents setting forth "specific extenuating circumstances or reasons for entering into a settlement." It argued that these files were disciplinary files, not directly connected to the settlement process. Second Declaration, pp 11, 12.
The district court ruled to the contrary in its first order, on December 15, 1983. It also ruled that the privacy interests in the settlement agreements, notices of removal, and final letters of removal were so attenuated that there was no violation of any substantial privacy interest, but that even if there were, such invasion was not "clearly unwarranted." Finally, it addressed FAA's claim that case summaries should be protected from disclosure under Exemption 5, which covers "inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency." 5 U.S.C. § 552(b) (5). 580 F. Supp. 994.
Fourth, the court reiterated its refusal to inspect documents in camera, citing Ingle v. Department of Justice, 698 F.2d 259, 264 (6th Cir. 1983) (indicating reluctance to hold such reviews except in cases where a very limited number of documents is involved).
Ground Rules. We begin our analysis by acknowledging the basic ground rules. The basic goal of the Freedom of Information Act is to open up agencies to public scrutiny. Department of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 372, 96 S. Ct. 1592, 1604, 48 L. Ed. 2d 11 (1976). Exemptions are to be narrowly construed. Id. at 361, 96 S. Ct. at 1599. And the government must carry the burden of proving the applicability of an exemption. Department of State v. Ray, --- U.S. ----, ----, 112 S. Ct. 541, 547, 116 L. Ed. 2d 526 (1991); Ingle, 698 F.2d at 264.
Exemption 6--Privacy. This exemption from mandatory disclosure covers "personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." 5 U.S.C. § 552(b) (6). We begin by assessing the nature and weight of the privacy interest and then balance that against the public purpose served by disclosure to see if disclosure would constitute a "clearly unwarranted" invasion. Ray, --- U.S. at ---- - ----, 112 S. Ct. at 548-49; Schell v. Department of Health and Human Services, 843 F.2d 933, 937-38 (6th Cir. 1988).
This does not mean that there is no remaining privacy interest in protecting identities. The Supreme Court has recognized a "privacy interest inherent in the nondisclosure of certain information even where the information may have been at one time public." Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of Press, 489 U.S. 749, 767, 109 S. Ct. 1468, 1778, 103 L. Ed. 2d 774 (1989) (barring disclosure of FBI "rap sheets" of convicts' records of convictions where not germane to purpose served by public scrutiny of agency's operations). In his brief, plaintiff defines "identifying information" to include "the controller's name, location, and perhaps social security number or other identifying number." Appellee's Brief at 5. He does not urge disclosure of this information, stating that what he "actually seeks is information about why the FAA rehired certain of the strikers and not the identity of the strikers." Id. at 8 (emphasis in original). Unquestionably, then, disclosure of plaintiff's category of "identifying information" would serve no public interest and therefore would constitute a "clearly unwarranted invasion of [the controllers'] privacy," see Ray, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S. Ct. at 543 (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 552(b) (6)).
The sweep of this concept was made clear at oral argument where counsel for FAA defended its extensive redacting policy by saying that " [t]he problem is that the stories the controllers gave are very factual and in our view are identifying...." Given this approach, we understand why plaintiff feels he has received very little, if any, relevant information in response to his request.
It seems to us that such a view of protecting privacy--excluding from disclosure any and all fragments of information that might assist a diligent researcher in identifying a person--is not supportable. The Supreme Court in Rose, 425 U.S. at 378, 96 S. Ct. at 1607, rejected nondisclosure based simply on the possibility that an item might trigger recollection of a person's identity. The exemption is directed at threats "more palpable" than mere possibility of identification. Id. at 380 n. 19, 96 S. Ct. at 1608 n. 19. The District of Columbia Circuit has applied this teaching to distinguish a case in which items of information would "by themselves" identify a person, Carter v. Department of Commerce, 830 F.2d 388, 391 & n. 12 (D.C. Cir. 1987), from one in which the requested information has the "possibility" of supplying a "missing link" in the chain of identification. Arieff v. Department of Navy, 712 F.2d 1462, 1467 (D.C. Cir. 1983).
Looking at the other element to be balanced, the public interest that would be served by disclosure, the district court identified it as follows: "ascertaining whether the agency authorized to deal with the nation's aviation safety handled matters surrounding the strike in a fair and consistent manner." Order at 8 (quoting Norwood v. FAA, 580 F. Supp. 994, 999 (W.D. Tenn. 1983)). This formulation fully accords with precedent: Rose, 425 U.S. at 372, 96 S. Ct. at 1604 (focus is the nature of the documentation and its relation to the goal of opening agency action to scrutiny); Hopkins v. Department of Housing and Urban Dev., 929 F.2d 81, 88 (2d Cir. 1991) ("monitoring" accepted as a public interest); Ripskis v. Department of Housing and Urban Dev., 746 F.2d 1, 3 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (recognizing "the public interest in efficient and evenhanded personnel policies"); and Arieff, 712 F.2d at 1468 (recognizing monitoring as the core purpose of FOIA).
Contrary to the FAA's contention, the language of Exemption 6 does not provide a blanket exemption for personnel and medical files; it exempts those and similar files only when their disclosure "would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." 5 U.S.C. § 552(b) (6). See Rose, 425 U.S. at 361, 96 S. Ct. at 1599 (FOIA exemptions must be narrowly construed). As noted earlier, that determination is made by balancing the public purpose in disclosure against the nature and weight of the privacy interest in nondisclosure. Ray, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S. Ct. at 548-49. In this particular case, medical and perhaps legal and financial information may bear on the reasons advanced by the controllers in their quest for a changed decision from FAA. Indeed, unless such information were relevant to a controller's defenses against removal, it would not properly be a part of an adverse action file. Therefore, disclosure of this information, with directly identifying data redacted, would not constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy unless the FAA demonstrated that the information was manifestly irrelevant to its decision in the particular case. Ray, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S. Ct. at 547 (government must carry the burden of proving the applicability of a FOIA exemption).2
Exemption 5--Attorney Work Product. Exemption 5 of FOIA covers "inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency." 5 U.S.C. § 552(b) (5). This language is interpreted to cover documents normally privileged when civil discovery is at issue, and includes materials protected by the "deliberative process" privilege and the attorney work product privilege. NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 421 U.S. 132, 149, 95 S. Ct. 1504, 1515-16, 44 L. Ed. 2d 29 (1975). We discuss first FAA's claim that case summaries merited protection under Exemption 5 as attorney work product.
As we have noted, the district court saw fit to consider these files severable and found that FAA had not carried its burden of showing that the factual portions of the case summaries and other documents for which the privilege was claimed were nonsegregable. With respect, we disagree. We note, first, that in the bellwether work product case, Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 508-11, 67 S. Ct. 385, 392-94, 91 L. Ed. 451 (1947), the privilege was held to protect statements of fact in an attorney's memoranda of interviews with witnesses. Second, we find persuasive the holding in Martin v. Office of Special Counsel, 819 F.2d 1181, 1187 (D.C. Cir. 1987):
The work-product privilege simply does not distinguish between factual and deliberative material.... [W]e find that if the work-product privilege protects the documents at issue here, Exemption (b) (5) protects them as well, regardless of their status as "factual" or "deliberative."
Third, we read United States v. Weber Aircraft Corp., 465 U.S. 792, 800 n. 17, 104 S. Ct. 1488, 1493, 79 L. Ed. 2d 814 (1984), as having made clear that the "deliberative-factual" distinction recognized in EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. 73, 89, 93 S. Ct. 827, 837, 35 L. Ed. 2d 119 (1973), as applicable to Exemption 5, referred only to "otherwise nonprivileged factual material." We therefore think that cases such as Deering Milliken, Inc. v. Irving, 548 F.2d 1131, 1137-38 (4th Cir. 1977), and Robbins Tire & Rubber Co. v. NLRB, 563 F.2d 724, 734-35 (5th Cir. 1977), rev'd on other grounds, 437 U.S. 214, 98 S. Ct. 2311, 57 L. Ed. 2d 159 (1978), no longer reflect the law on this point.
Exemption 5--Deliberative Process. The district court appropriately noted that this privilege aims to protect documents that are both "predecisional" and "deliberative," quoting Schell v. Department of Health and Human Services, 843 F.2d 933, 940 (6th Cir. 1988) (citations omitted): "A document is predecisional when it is 'received by the decisionmaker on the subject of the decision prior to the time the decision is made,' ... and deliberative when it 'reflects the give-and-take of the consultative process.' "The test is "whether the disclosure of materials would expose an agency's decisionmaking process in such a way as to discourage candid discussion within the agency and thereby undermine the agency's ability to perform its functions." Dudman Communications Corp. v. Department of the Air Force, 815 F.2d 1565, 1568 (D.C. Cir. 1987). Finally, "purely factual, investigative matters" that are "severable without compromising the private remainder of the documents" do not enjoy the protection of the exemption. Mink, 410 U.S. at 89, 91, 93 S. Ct. at 837, 838.