Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-25
Timestamp: 2014-09-30 18:04:30
Document Index: 44109640

Matched Legal Cases: ['§2721', '§2721', '§2721', '§2721', '§56', '§56', '§2721', '§2721', '§2725', '§2721', '§2721', '§2721', '§350', '§2721', '§2721', '§2721', '§2724', '§2723', '§2721', '§2721', '§2721', '§2721', '§1512', '§1512', '§2721', '§2721', '§2723', '§2721', '§1512', '§31308']

MARACICH v. SPEARS | LII / Legal Information Institute
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MARACICH et al.
v. SPEARS et al.
Respondent attorneys submitted several state Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the South Carolina DMV, seeking names and addresses of thousands of individuals in order to solicit clients for a lawsuit they had pending against several South Carolina car dealerships for violation of a state law that protects car purchasers from dealership actions that are “arbitrary, in bad faith, or unconscionable.” Using the personal information provided by the DMV, respondents sent over 34,000 car purchasers letters, which were headed “ADVERTISING MATERIAL,” explained the lawsuit, and asked recipients to return an enclosed reply card if they wanted to participate in the case. Petitioners, South Carolina residents, sued respondents for violating the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994 (DPPA) by obtaining, disclosing, and using petitioners’ personal information from motor vehicle records for bulk solicitation without their express consent. Respondents moved to dismiss, claiming that the information was properly released under a DPPA exception permitting disclosure of personal information “for use in connection with any civil, criminal, administrative, or arbitral proceeding,” including “investigation in anticipation of litigation.”
18 U. S. C. §2721(b)(4). The District Court held that respondents’ letters were not solicitations and that the use of information fell within (b)(4)’s litigation exception. The Fourth Circuit affirmed, concluding that the letters were solicitation, but that the solicitation was intertwined with conduct that satisfied the (b)(4) exception.
(1) The phrase “in connection with” provides little guidance without a limiting principle consistent with the DPPA’s purpose and its other provisions. See New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Ins. Co.,
514 U. S. 645. Such a consistent interpretation is also required because (b)(4) is an exception to both the DPPA’s general ban on disclosure of “personal information” and the ban on release of “highly restricted personal information.” An exception to a general policy statement is “usually read . . . narrowly in order to preserve the [provision’s] primary operation.” Commissioner v. Clark,
489 U. S. 726. Reading (b)(4) to permit disclosure of personal information when there is any connection between protected information and a potential legal dispute would substantially undermine the DPPA’s purpose of protecting a right to privacy in motor vehicle records. Subsection (b)(4)’s “in connection with” language must have a limit, and a logical and necessary conclusion is that an attorney’s solicitation of prospective clients falls outside of that limit. Pp. 9–11.
(2) An attorney’s solicitation of new clients is distinct from an attorney’s conduct on behalf of his client or the court. Solicitation “by a lawyer of remunerative employment is a business transaction,” Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn.,
436 U. S. 447, and state bars treat solicitation as discrete professional conduct. Excluding solicitation from the meaning of “in connection with” litigation draws support from (b)(4)’s examples of permissible litigation uses—“service of process, investigation in anticipation of litigation, and the execution or enforcement of judgments and orders”—which all involve an attorney’s conduct as an officer of the court, not a commercial actor. Similarly, “investigation in anticipation of litigation” is best understood to allow background research to determine if there is a supportable theory for a complaint or a theory sufficient to avoid sanctions for filing a frivolous lawsuit, or to help locate witnesses for deposition or trial. Pp. 11–14.
(e) Respondents contend that a line can be drawn between mere trolling for clients and their solicitation, which was tied to a specific legal dispute, but that is not a tenable distinction. The DPPA supports drawing the line at solicitation. Solicitation can aid an attorney in bringing a lawsuit or increasing its size, but the question is whether or not lawyers can use personal information protected under the DPPA for this purpose. The mere fact that respondents complied with state bar rules governing solicitations also does not resolve whether they were entitled to access personal information from the state DMV database for that purpose. In determining whether obtaining, using, or disclosing personal information is for the prohibited purpose of solicitation, the proper inquiry is whether the defendant’s purpose was to solicit, which might be evident from the communication itself or from the defendant’s course of conduct. When that is the predominant purpose, (b)(4) does not entitle attorneys to DPPA-protected information even when solicitation is to aggregate a class action. Attorneys also have other alternatives to aggregate a class, including, e.g. soliciting plaintiffs through traditional and permitted advertising. And they may obtain DPPA-protected information for a proper investigative use. Although the Fourth Circuit held that the letters here were solicitations, it found the communications nonetheless exempt under (b)(4) because they were “inextricably intertwined” with permissible litigation purposes. If however, the use of DPPA-protected personal information has the predominant purpose of solicitation, it would not be protected by (b)(4). A remand is necessary for the court to apply the proper standard to determine the predominant purpose of respondents’ letters. Pp. 20–26.
(f) There is no work for the rule of lenity to do here, because the DPPA’s text and structure resolve any ambiguity in (b)(4)’s phrases “in connection with” and “investigation in anticipation of litigation.” Pp. 26–27. (g) On remand, the courts below must determine whether respondents’ letters, viewed objectively, had the predominant purpose of solicitation, and may address whether respondents’ conduct was permissible under (b)(1)’s governmental-function exception and any other defenses that have been properly preserved. Pp. 27–29.
EDWARD F. MARACICH, et al., PETITIONERS v.MICHAEL EUGENE SPEARS et al.
Concerned that personal information collected by States in the licensing of motor vehicle drivers was beingreleased—even sold—with resulting loss of privacy for many persons, Congress provided federal statutory protection. It enacted the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994, referred to here as the DPPA. See 18 U. S. C. §§2721–2725.
The DPPA regulates the disclosure of personal information contained in the records of state motor vehicle de-partments (DMVs). Disclosure of personal informationis prohibited unless for a purpose permitted by an ex-ception listed in 1 of 14 statutory subsections. See §§2721(b)(1)–(14). This case involves the interpretation of one of those exceptions, subsection (b)(4). The exception in (b)(4) permits obtaining personal information from a state DMV for use “in connection with” judicial and administrative proceedings, including “investigation in anticipation of litigation.” §2721(b)(4). The question presented is whether an attorney’s solicitation of clients for a lawsuit falls within the scope of (b)(4).
The State of South Carolina, to protect purchasers of motor vehicles, enacted the South Carolina Regulationof Manufacturers, Distributors, and Dealers Act (MDDA). In June 2006, respondent attorneys were approached by car purchasers who complained about administrative fees charged by car dealerships in certain South Carolina counties, allegedly in violation of the MDDA. The state statute prohibits motor vehicle dealers from engaging in “any action which is arbitrary, in bad faith, or unconscionable and which causes damage to any of the parties or to the public.” S. C. Code Ann. §56–15–40(1) (2006). The MDDA provides that “one or more may sue for the benefit of the whole” where an action is “one of common or general interest to many persons or when the parties are numerous and it is impracticable to bring them all before the court.” §56–15–110(2).
Respondents moved to dismiss. The information, they contended, was subject to disclosure because it falls within two statutory exceptions in the DPPA: (b)(1), pertaining to governmental functions, and (b)(4), pertaining to litigation. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court held as a matter of law that respondents’letters were not solicitations and that the use of information fell within the (b)(4) litigation exception. App. to Pet. for Cert. 61a. The District Court also found that respondents’ use of personal information was permitted under the (b)(1) governmental-function exception.
To obtain a driver’s license or register a vehicle, state DMVs, as a general rule, require an individual to disclose detailed personal information, including name, home address, telephone number, Social Security number, and medical information. See Reno v. Condon,
528 U. S. 141,
“For use in connection with any civil, criminal, administrative, or arbitral proceeding in any Federal, State, or local court or agency or before any self-regulatory body, including the service of process,investigation in anticipation of litigation, and the exe-cution or enforcement of judgments and orders, or pur-suant to an order of a Federal, State, or local court.”
If considered in isolation, and without reference to the structure and purpose of the DPPA, (b)(4)’s exception allowing disclosure of personal information “for use in connection with any civil, criminal, administrative, or arbitral proceeding,” and for “investigation in anticipation of litigation,” is susceptible to a broad interpretation. That language, in literal terms, could be interpreted to its broadest reach to include the personal information that respondents obtained here. But if no limits are placed on the text of the exception, then all uses of personal information with a remote relation to litigation would be exempt under (b)(4). The phrase “in connection with” is essentially “indeterminat[e]” because connections, like relations, “ ‘stop nowhere.’ ” New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Ins. Co.,
514 U. S. 645,
655 (1995)
. So the phrase “in connection with” provides little guidance without a limiting principle consistent with the structure of the statute and its other provisions. See id., at 656 (“We simply must go beyond the unhelpful text and the frustrating difficulty of defining [‘connection with’], and look instead to the objectives of the ERISA statute”); see also California Div. of Labor Standards Enforcement v. Dillingham Constr., N. A., Inc.,
519 U. S. 316,
335 (1997)
An interpretation of (b)(4) that is consistent with the statutory framework and design is also required because (b)(4) is an exception to both the DPPA’s general prohibition against disclosure of “personal information” and its ban on release of “highly restricted personal information.” §§2721(a)(1)–(2). An exception to a “general statement of policy” is “usually read . . . narrowly in order to preserve the primary operation of the provision.” Commissioner v. Clark,
489 U. S. 726,
739 (1989)
An attorney’s solicitation of new clients is distinct from other aspects of the legal profession. “It is no less true than trite that lawyers must operate in a three-fold capacity, as self-employed businessmen as it were, as trusted agents of their clients, and as assistants to the court in search of a just solution to disputes.” Cohen v. Hurley,
366 U. S. 117,
, overruled on other grounds, Spevack v. Klein,
385 U. S. 511 (1967)
. Unlike an attorney’sconduct performed on behalf of his client or the court, “solicitation by a lawyer of remunerative employment is a business transaction.” Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn.,
436 U. S. 447,
457 (1978)
; see also Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel of Supreme Court of Ohio,
471 U. S. 626,
The exclusion of solicitation from the meaning of “in connection with” litigation draws further support from the examples of permissible litigation uses in (b)(4). The familiar canon of noscitur
sociis, the interpretive rule that “words and people are known by their companions,” Gutierrez v. Ada,
528 U. S. 250,
, provides instruction in this respect. Under this rule, the phrases “in connection with” and “investigation in anticipation of litigation,” which are “capable of many meanings,” Jarecki v. G. D. Searle & Co.,
367 U. S. 303,
307 (1961)
, can be construed in light of their accompanying words in order to avoid giving the statutory exception “unintended breadth,” ibid.; see also United States v. Williams,
553 U. S. 285, 294 (2008) (the canon of noscitur a sociis “counsels that a word is given more precise content by the neighboring words with which it is associated”).
Subsection (b)(4) is one of only four exceptions in the statute that permit disclosure of “highly restricted personal information,” including a person’s image, Social Security number, and medical and disability information. See §2721(a)(2); §2725(4). The other three exceptions that permit access to highly restricted personal information include: use by the government, including law enforcement, see §2721(b)(1); use by an insurer in claim investigation and antifraud activities, see §2721(b)(6); and use by an employer to obtain or verify information as required by law, see §2721(b)(9). None of these exceptions are written to authorize private individuals to acquire the most restricted personal information in bulk merely to propose a commercial transaction for their own financial benefit. If (b)(4) permitted access to highly restricted personal information for an attorney’s own commercial ends with-out governmental authorization or without consent ofthe holder of the driver’s license, the result would be so sig-nificant a departure from these other exceptions thatit counsels against adopting this interpretation of the statute.
It is necessary and required that an interpretation of a phrase of uncertain reach is not confined to a single sentence when the text of the whole statute gives instruction as to its meaning. United States Nat. Bank of Ore. v. Independent Ins. Agents of America, Inc.,
508 U. S. 439,
455 (1993)
So the question is not which of the two exceptions controls but whether respondents’ conduct falls within the litigation exception at all. As to this question, petitioners are correct that the existence of the separate provision governing solicitation provides necessary context for defining the scope of (b)(4). As discussed above, the text of (b)(4) indicates that the exception is best read not to include solicitation as a use “in connection with” litigation. But even if there were any doubt on this point, the statutory design of the DPPA as a whole, including the (b)(12) exception governing solicitations, provides additional instruction for construing this provision. For this reason, it is relevant that “ ‘Congress has enacted a comprehensive scheme and has deliberately targeted specific problems with specific solutions.’ ” RadLAX Gateway Hotel, LLC v. Amalgamated Bank, 566 U. S.___, ___ (2012) (slip op.,at 5).
Subsection (b)(12) implements an important objective of the DPPA—to restrict disclosure of personal information contained in motor vehicle records to businesses for the purpose of direct marketing and solicitation. The DPPA was enacted in part to respond to the States’ common practice of selling personal information to businesses that used it for marketing and solicitations. See Condon, 528 U. S., at 143 (“Congress found that many States . . . sell this personal information to individuals and businesses”); id., at 148 (“The motor vehicle information which the States have historically sold is used by insurers, manufacturers, direct marketers, and others engaged in interstate commerce to contact drivers with customized solicitations”). Congress chose to protect individual privacy by requiring a state DMV to obtain the license holder’s express consent before permitting the disclosure, acquisition, and use of personal information for bulk solicitation. The importance of the consent requirement is highlighted by Congress’ decision in 1999 to change the statutory mechanism that allowed individuals protected by the Act to opt out to one requiring them to opt in. See id., at 144–145; see also §§350(c)–(e),
113Stat.
Of course solicitation can aid an attorney in bringing a lawsuit or in increasing its size. The question, however, is whether or not lawyers can use personal information protected under the DPPA for this purpose. Petitioners and other state residents have no real choice but to disclose their personal information to the state DMV, including highly restricted personal information. The use of that information by private actors to send direct commercial solicitations without the license holder’s consent is asubstantial intrusion on the individual privacy the Act protects. For the reasons already discussed, a proper interpretation of a use “in connection with” litigation under (b)(4) in light of the DPPA’s text and structure does not include solicitation.
Close cases may arise. Where a communication seeks to provide class notice or locate a witness, for example, the fact that the attorney provides contact information for a reply likely would not make the communication an improper solicitation. And the fact that a letter follows the state bar rules governing attorney solicitations, although relevant, will not be dispositive. For example, if the predominant purpose of a letter was not to solicit a new client, but rather to ask a witness investigatory questions or to secure her testimony at trial, adherence to state bar solicitation rules would not subject the sender to DPPA liability. Subsequent conduct, in some cases, may show that solicitation in fact was the predominant purpose of an earlier act; and, of course, even if an initial request was proper, a later use may be a violation. Where a reason-able observer could discern that the predominant purpose of obtaining, using, or disclosing protected personalinformation was to initiate or propose a business trans-action with a prospective client, (b)(4) does not exempt the solicitation.
Respondents contend that even if solicitation of clients is impermissible as a general rule, solicitation to aggregate a class action suit is permitted under (b)(4). Where the predominant purpose is solicitation, however, (b)(4) does not entitle attorneys to obtain and use DPPA-protected information. To the extent the solicitation of plaintiffs can help attorneys bring a larger class action, there are alternatives that do not sacrifice an individual’s privacy in his or her motor vehicle records. An attorney, pursuant to a court order, could send class notice. Class notice may prompt a class member to join the lawsuit, but it also serves the important purpose of protecting the rights of absent class members and ensures that any decision will be binding on the class. Class notice sent on the instruction of the court also does not raise the same concerns that attorneys are acting only in their own commercial interest. But respondents here did not obtain or use the protected personal information to send class no-tices or comply with a court order. The letters made no mention of ethical obligations to outstanding group members or the consequences of not joining the suit. As the Court of Appeals noted, respondents “failed to indicate to recipients that they may already be de facto clients of the Lawyers, that is, persons whose interests were already protected by the senders.” 675 F. 3d, at 293. Had respondents received a court order, they might have been able to rely on the explicit language in (b)(4) permitting uses of information “pursuant to an order of a Federal, State, or local court.” §2721(b)(4). But because respondents had no court order authorizing their conduct, this opinion need not address whether it would be proper for a court to order attorneys to obtain DPPA-protected personal information to solicit plaintiffs.
In this framework, there is no work for the rule of lenity to do. This Court has held that “the rule of lenity only applies if, after considering text, structure, history, and purpose, there remains a grievous ambiguity or uncertainty in the statute such that the Court must simply guess asto what Congress intended.” Barber v. Thomas, 560 U. S. ___, ___ (2010) (slip op., at 13) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). But here, as discussed, the surrounding text and structure of the DPPA resolve any ambiguity in phrases “in connection with” and “investigation in anticipation of litigation” in (b)(4). Only where “the language or history of [the statute] is uncertain” after looking to “the particular statutory language, . . . the design of the statute as a whole and to its object and policy,” does the rule of lenity serve to give further guidance. Crandon v. United States,
. “The rule [of lenity] comes into operation at the end of the process of construing what Congress has expressed, not at the beginning as an overriding consideration of being lenient to wrongdoers.” See Callanan v. United States,
Further proceedings also may be required to determine whether the initial act of obtaining petitioners’ personal information was permitted under the DPPA. The Court of Appeals and the District Court seem to have agreed that the first two FOIA requests were made in order for respondents to decide whether to file the MDDA lawsuit as a group action and to identify the highest volume dealers. App. 39a. If, in light of this opinion, the courts on remand adhere to the determination that the first two FOIArequests were exempt under (b)(4), the later uses and dis-closures of that information, nevertheless, may be independ-ent violations of the DPPA.
Respondents are lawyers who served as counsel in a representative action against South Carolina car dealers alleged to have charged car buyers unlawful administrative fees. In connection with that litigation, the lawyers obtained from South Carolina’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) information identifying buyers who may have been charged unlawful fees and dealers who may have conspired to exact those fees. The lawyers subsequently sent letters to the identified buyers inquiring whether they had been charged administrative fees, informing them of the litigation, and inviting them to join as plaintiffs. The courts below determined that the lawyers’ requests for the information and their use of it fell squarely within the litigation exception to the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994 (DPPA),
18 U. S. C. §2721(b)(4), and that the Act’s limitation on solicitation, §2721(b)(12), did not override the litigation exception. I would affirm that sound judgment. As the Fourth Circuit explained, respondents “did what any good lawyer would have done.” 675 F. 3d 281, 298 (2012). This Court’s holding, exposing respondents not only to astronomical liquidated damages, §2724(b)(1), but to criminal fines as well, §2723(a), is scarcely what Congress ordered in enacting the DPPA.
The DPPA generally prohibits any state DMV from “knowingly disclos[ing] or otherwise mak[ing] available to any person” personal information about any individual.
18 U. S. C. §2721(a). This prohibition is subject to a number of statutory exceptions, including stated purposes for which the DPPA requires disclosure and 14 purposes for which the DPPA permits disclosure. §2721(b). The 14 permitted uses of DMV data are designed to “strik[e] a critical balance between an individual’s fundamental right to privacy and safety and the legitimate governmental and business needs for th[e] information.” 140 Cong. Rec. 7925 (1994) (remarks of Rep. Moran). State DMVs may release information for any one of these permitted purposes, but they are not required to do so.
After the lawsuit was filed, respondent-lawyers obtained the names of persons who had purchased cars from the dealers they had identified as defendants and mailed letters to those purchasers. Ante, at 4. These dispatches are the actions that, in the Court’s view, render respondent-lawyers potentially liable for violating the DPPA. To determine whether the DPPA authorized the respondent-lawyers’ uses of DMV information, I first consider the posture of the Herron litigation at the time of the mailings to car purchasers. The complaint filed by respondent-lawyers on behalf of the car purchasers alleged that the dealers were involved in a conspiracy to charge unlawful fees. App. 138–139. In a competitive market, the lawyers urged, such conduct can succeed only when done in concert with other dealers; otherwise, consumers would take their business elsewhere. Meanwhile, the dealers moved to dismiss the conspiracy claim and argued there was no party with standing to sue those dealers who had not sold a car to a named plaintiff. Id., at 155.
The state court denied the dealers’ motion to dismiss, stating that the complaint alleged sufficient facts “supporting standing of the plaintiffs to proceed” against all defendants, and that there were “sufficient allegations of civil conspiracy” to avoid threshold dismissal of that claim. Id., at 212. At a subsequent hearing, the state court clarified that respondent-lawyers could “go forward with eight people [the named plaintiffs]” and the court would consider the standing issue raised in the dealers’ motion to dismiss “when all the discovery is in and it comes to dis-positive motions.” Record in No. 7:09–cv–1651–HMH (D SC), Doc. 78–9, p. 50.
Congress used expansive language in framing the §2721(b)(4) exception, starting with the words “in connection with” and thrice repeating the word “any.” See Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc.,
504 U. S. 374,
383 (1992)
(“The ordinary meaning of th[e] words [‘relating to’] is a broad one.”); Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp.,
563 U. S. 1, ___ (2011) (slip op., at 7) (“[T]he phrase ‘any complaint’ suggests a broad interpretation.”). Notably, the Court acknowledges that (b)(4) is “susceptible to a broad interpretation,” and, “in literal terms,” could be read “to include the personal information that [respondent-lawyers] obtained here.” Ante, at 9.
It would be extraordinary for Congress to pass a law disturbing the processes of a state court in such a case. “[T]he National Government, anxious though it may be to vindicate and protect federal rights and federal interests, always endeavors to do so in ways that will not unduly interfere with the legitimate activities of the States,” and this includes a general “deference to the state adjudicative process.” Levin v. Commerce Energy, Inc.,
560 U. S. 413, ___ (2010) (slip op., at 15–16) (quoting Younger v. Harris,
401 U. S. 37,
). We have taken special care to emphasize “the State’s strong interest in regulating members of the Bar,” Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn.,
467 (1978)
, and have cautioned against undue “Federal interference with a State’s traditional regulation of [the legal] profession,” Bates v. State Bar of Ariz.,
433 U. S. 350,
I agree with the Court that the words “in connection with” must be contained within reasonable bounds. But the Court immediately jumps from this premise to the conclusion that “an attorney’s solicitation of prospective clients falls outside of [any reasonable] limit.” Ante, at 10–11; ante, at 11, 13 (solicitation, a “discrete act” prohibited by the statute, allows no exception for conduct “in connection with litigation”). The leap is startling. In prior decisions, when the Court has sought a limiting principle for similar statutory language, it has done so to prevent the application of a statute to matters with “only a tenuous, remote, or peripheral connection” to the statute’s core purpose. New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Ins. Co.,
661 (1995)
(quoting District of Columbia v. Greater Washington Bd. of Trade,
506 U. S. 125,
130, n.
The majority’s sojourn away from §2721(b)(4)’s text in search of a limiting principle is unwarranted. A limit to the scope of (b)(4) can be readily identified by attending to the phrasing of the provision and its focus on a “proceeding.” Congress used similar language in the obstruction of justice statute, which criminalizes various attempts to interfere with a “proceeding.”
18 U. S. C. §1512. The Court had no difficulty identifying a limiting principle in this term; it held that the statute applies only to persons who “have in contemplation any particular official proceeding.” Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States,
544 U. S. 696,
708 (2005)
This case is squarely within the metes and bounds of (b)(4). The letters advanced the concrete interests of the respondent-lawyers’ clients within a pending adversarial civil proceeding in state court. Just as the letters at issue in this case would be in contemplation of a particular “proceeding” as that term is used in
18 U. S. C. §1512, and would be “in anticipation of litigation” as Rule 26(b)(3) employs that term, they fall within the very same language as it appears in §2721(b)(4).
The Court sows further confusion by narrowly construing the four exceptions that permit disclosure of information the DPPA ranks as “highly restricted personal information.” §2721(a)(2); see ante, at 14. These exceptions apply to uses by the government, (b)(1); court opera-tions, (b)(4); use by insurance companies, entities perva-sively regulated by the States, (b)(6); and commercial driver’s licenses, which are regulated by the Federal Government and administered by the States, (b)(9).
This case illustrates the problem. In truth, the letters served both as an investigative tool and as an invitation to car purchasers to join the Herron suit. How is the factfinder to determine which purpose was predominant? Toss a coin when the trier finds the answer is: “six of one, half dozen of the other”? As the Court of Appeals recognized, the use here, although qualifying as a solicitation, “was inextricably intertwined with investigation and prosecution of the Herron litigation.” 675 F. 3d, at 300. Finally, the rule of lenity requires that we resolve any residual ambiguity in respondents’ favor. Petitioners sought $2,500 in statutory damages for every letter mailed—a total of some $200 million—and punitive damages to boot. Brief for Respondents 15. Such damages cannot possibly represent a legislative judgment regarding average actual damage. The Court’s opinion is wrong to suggest that the rule of lenity does not apply to governmental penalties so long as they are payable to private individuals and labeled “liquidated damages,” rather than “criminal fines.” Moreover, the DPPA, which appears in Title 18 of the United States Code, imposes criminal liability for a knowing violation of its provisions.
18 U. S. C. §2723(a). Because this is a civil case, I need not consider what defenses respondent-lawyers might have were they criminally prosecuted. But because we are interpreting a criminal statute, “it is appropriate to apply the rule of lenity in resolving any ambiguity in the ambit of the statute’s coverage,” even in a civil case. Crandon v. United States,
. See also Leocal v. Ashcroft,
543 U. S. 1,
(explaining that, if a statute has criminal applications, “the rule of lenity applies” to the Court’s interpretation of the statute “[b]ecause we must interpret the statute consistently, whether we encounter its application in a criminal or noncriminal context”); Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, Inc.,
537 U. S. 393–409 (2003) (applying rule of lenity in civil case asserting claims under Hobbs Act); United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Co.,
504 U. S. 505,
518 (1992)
The Court recognizes that there may be ambiguity in the (b)(4) phrases “in connection with” and “investigation in anticipation of litigation.” Ante, at 26. But it finds any ambiguity in these phrases resolved by the structure of the DPPA. Ibid. What “structure,” one may ask, other than an enumeration of 14 discrete exceptions, each permitting disclosure? See supra, at 11–12. The DPPA has been in effect for over 15 years, and yet the Court points to no judicial decision interpreting the statute in the way it does today. We should hesitate to adopt a novel interpretation of a federal statute that subjects parties to crushing liability. “[I]t is reasonable that a fair warning should be given to the world in language that the common world will understand, of what the law intends to do if a certain line is passed.” McBoyle v. United States,
283 U. S. 25,
The Court today exposes lawyers whose conduct meets state ethical requirements to huge civil liability and potential criminal liability. It does so by adding to the DPPA’s litigation exception a solicitation bar Congress did not place in that exception. Because respondent lawyers’ use of DMV information fits within the exception deline-ated in §2721(b)(4), I would affirm the Fourth Circuit’s judgment.
4 Respondent-lawyers propose a broader reading of (b)(4), arguing that any use tied to an identified “transaction, occurrence, [or] defect” should be permissible. Tr. of Oral Arg. 58. Their reading, however, fails to account for all the words in (b)(4), most notably the provision’s focus on a “proceeding.” See Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States,
544 U. S. 696–708, and n. 10 (2005) (destroying evidence of suspicious transactions could not give rise to liability under
18 U. S. C. §1512 unless done in contemplation of a particular proceeding).
7 The placement of (b)(12) toward the end of a list of 14 hardly signals its special importance. The Court cites Reno v. Condon,
49 U. S. C. §31308.