Opinion ID: 508924
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Claims for Injunctive Relief Based Upon Other Statutes

Text: 22 We next evaluate Doe's claims that he is entitled to equitable relief based upon a number of statutes concerned either with safeguarding individuals' privacy or guaranteeing prosecutorial regularity. 23 Turning first to Doe's contention that the issuance of the grand jury subpoena constituted an abuse of compulsory process, we agree with the district court that this claim affords no basis for relief. See District Court Opinion at 630-631. Doe forswears reliance on the common law tort of abuse of process, see Brief for Appellant at 22, arguing instead that in light of the protections encoded within the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, 42 U.S.C. Secs. 2000aa et seq. (1982), and guidelines promulgated thereunder, see 28 C.F.R. Secs. 59.1-59.6 (1986), the acquisition of his medical records was abusive and unlawful. That statute was passed in response to the Supreme Court's decision in Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, 436 U.S. 547, 98 S.Ct. 1970, 56 L.Ed.2d 525 (1978), holding that the First Amendment did not provide the press with any constitutional protection against police searches. It seeks to regulate searches and seizures of materials possessed by a person with the purpose of disseminating them to the public through some form of public communication. See, e.g., 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000aa(a); see also S.Rep. No. 874, 96th Cong., 2d Sess. 4, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1980, pp. 3950, 3951 (hereinafter Senate Report). 24 We find the Act and the regulations thereunder inapposite to Doe's claim, for two reasons. First, as the district court observed, the Act by its own terms restricts only searches and seizures, not subpoenas. In fact, the Act specifically endorses the use of subpoenas as a means of lessen[ing] greatly the threat otherwise pose[d] to the vigorous exercise of First Amendment rights by searches and seizures. Senate Report at 4-5, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1980, p. 3951; see also id. at 11, U.S. Code Cong. & Admin. News 1980, pp. 3957-58 (stating that only limited exceptions exist to the preference for reliance upon subpoenas over mere search warrants). Second, as is suggested by the fact that the Act was prompted by the first amendment case of Zurcher, see id. at 4, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1980, p. 3950, the Act affords protection only to materials held for the purpose of dissemination to the public, a category into which Doe's medical records do not fall. The Senate Report stated: 25 In order to qualify for the statute's protections, the materials must be possessed in connection with a purpose of disseminating some form of public communication. Materials which are prepared or collected for other purposes, are not protected. Thus, business records or reports which are required to be filed with government agencies would not be protected. 26 Id. at 10, U.S. Code Cong. & Admin. News 1980, pp. 3950-3951. 7 27 Doe's attempt to ground the equitable relief he seeks upon the physician-patient privilege encoded in D.C. Code Sec. 14-307(a) is also misplaced. That provision states: 28 In the Federal courts in the District of Columbia and District of Columbia courts a physician or surgeon or mental health professional as defined by the District of Columbia Mental Health Information Act of 1978 (D.C.Code, sec. 6-1611), may not be permitted, without the consent of the person afflicted, or of his legal representative, to disclose any information, confidential in its nature, that he has acquired in attending a client in a professional capacity and that was necessary to enable him to act in that capacity, whether the information was obtained from the client or from his family or from the person or persons in charge of him. 29 The district court concluded that Sec. 14-307 is inapplicable to the VA's release to the U.S. Attorney's Office of Doe's medical records, interpreting the provision as creating a mere in-court evidentiary privilege. We agree. Section 14-307(a) is situated in that portion of the D.C. Code setting forth evidentiary rules governing the judicial setting, and specifically within the Code subsection entitled, Competency of Witnesses. Moreover, by its own terms, the physician-patient provision applies only to disclosures in the Federal courts. There is no evidence that this provision was intended to create more than an evidentiary rule or to establish a cause of action or a broader right enforceable in out-of-court settings. This finding of a limited privilege applicable only in the judicial context accords with the interpretations of Sec. 14-307 proffered by District of Columbia courts and federal district courts in this circuit. See, e.g., Logan v. District of Columbia, 447 F.Supp. 1328, 1335 (D.D.C.1978); Vassiliades v. Garfinckel's, 492 A.2d 580, 591 (D.C.App.1985). 30 Nor can we accept Doe's argument that a separate District of Columbia law, the District of Columbia Mental Health Information Act, D.C.Code Sec. 6-2001-to-2062, either independently or in conjunction with Sec. 14-307 extends the scope of the physician-patient privilege so as to bar the disclosure occurring in this case. That enactment provides that no mental health professional, mental health facility, data collector or employeee or agent of a mental health facility or data collector shall disclose or permit the disclosure of mental health information to any person, including an employer. D.C. Code Sec. 6-2002(a). Despite the seeming facial applicability of this enactment, we agree with the district court that it confers no rights upon Doe. Insofar as the Act purports to regulate the disclosure rules governing information held by the VA, it is squarely preempted by the federal Veterans' Records Statute, an enactment which plainly was designed to occupy the field of rules governing disclosure of veterans' records. On this point, we adopt in its entirety the reasoning of the district court opinion, which stated: 31 A review of the Veterans' Records Statute reveals that it establishes a comprehensive scheme to regulate the disclosure of veterans' records. As supplemented by the Privacy Act, the Veterans' Records Statute provides carefully crafted rules and procedures regulating disclosure of records, exceptions and limitations, and civil and criminal penalties for specific violations. See generally 38 U.S.C. Secs. 3301-02; 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a). There is no suggestion that Congress intended to permit local or state laws to impose additional requirements and penalties upon the disclosure process. The Court thus concludes that the Veterans' Records Statute, complete as it is in every detail, was intended to provide the whole and exclusive law regarding disclosure of VA records. 32 The Veterans' Records Statute also is part of a field of law in which the federal interest is clearly dominant. Congress' power to regulate veterans' affairs is directly derived from its share of the federal government's constitutional war powers. Exclusive federal regulation of disclosure of veterans' records thus does not encroach upon an area of traditional state regulation. Accordingly, the congressional power to regulate disclosure of veterans' records is of such a nature that the Constitution permits only of one uniform national system. 33 District Court Opinion at 629-30 (citations and footnotes omitted). 34 Even if the federal enactment did not occupy the regulatory field so as to leave no room for local regulation, the doctrine of federal preemption would still prevent courts from applying the D.C. Mental Health Information Act so as to bar release of federally held records. This is so because imposing such a ban could substantially impede federal activities or directly place 'a prohibition on the federal government,'  a result forbidden by the Supremacy Clause in the absence of congressional acceptance of the state or local regulation. See, e.g., Don't Tear It Down, Inc. v. Pennsylvania Avenue Corp., 642 F.2d 527, 535 (D.C.Cir.1980) (quoting Hancock v. Train, 426 U.S. 167, 180, 96 S.Ct. 2006, 2013, 48 L.Ed.2d 555 (1976)). Nor is the effect of applying this D.C. enactment to expand Doe's rights vis-a-vis the VA so incidental or nonburdensome to escape the ban on uninvited burdens upon federal activities. Violation of the local enactment carries civil and criminal penalties. See D.C.Code Secs. 6-2061--6-2062. We therefore agree with the district court that Doe cannot premise his request for equitable relief upon this enactment. 35