Opinion ID: 2959659
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: In November 2008, the FOP submitted twenty separate FOIA requests to the MPD for documents generated in connection with internal disciplinary proceedings against officers of specified upper ranks for particular offenses in particular years. Illustratively, one request sought all documents regarding any lieutenant who was disciplined during the year 2007 for “Conduct Unbecoming for inappropriate disciplining of a child or any other similar violation.” A separate request sought records of any lieutenant disciplined in 2007 for “Untruthful Statements.” Similar requests were made with respect to disciplinary files of police inspectors, captains, commanders, and assistant chiefs. There were separate requests, for instance, relating to any officer at the rank of captain or above disciplined in 2007 for “Absent Without Official Leave,” and to any assistant chief disciplined that year for “Neglect of Duty for failure to provide[] direction.” The MPD denied each of the requests, citing the FOIA exemption for “[i]nformation of a personal nature where the public disclosure thereof would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” 3 The FOP 3 D.C. Code § 2-534 (a)(2). 4 thereupon brought the present FOIA action. In May 2009, the Superior Court granted summary judgment in the FOP’s favor, ordering the MPD to produce the requested disciplinary files, redacted of information that would identify the subject officers. On the District’s appeal, we held in an unpublished opinion that the requested documents should be produced under FOIA “if they can be appropriately redacted,” and we remanded the case for the trial court to conduct an in camera review “to determine whether the documents when properly redacted are intelligible and of value to the FOP.”4
Redacted Documents for In Camera Review On remand, the FOP confirmed that it was “not interested in obtaining the personal information of the disciplined MPD officers referenced in the subject disciplinary files,” and it agreed that the MPD should redact “names, the officer’s rank and district, home addresses, birth dates, social security numbers or other personal identifiers, and physical descriptions of individuals.” Even with such redactions, the FOP explained, “the officers’ conduct, facts surrounding the 4 District of Columbia v. Fraternal Order of Police Metro. Police Labor Comm., Nos. 09-CV-758, 09-CV-920 at 2 (Jan. 24, 2012) (citing Judge Ruiz’s concurring opinion in District of Columbia v. Fraternal Order of Police Metro. Police Labor Comm., 33 A.3d 332 (D.C. 2011)). 5 conduct, basis for the discipline, aggravating and mitigating factors considered, evidence included in the record or submitted at any hearing, and the actual discipline imposed will all be disclosed.” This information, the FOP proffered, would be useful in its efforts to “educate, prepare, and defend police officers who are faced with disciplinary action” and to “ensur[e] that the MPD disciplines officers in a consistent and just manner.” Pursuant to the court’s direction, to carry out our instructions on remand, the District submitted five sample disciplinary files, in both a redacted and an unredacted format, for in camera review. The files in this initial production comprised thousands of pages. The District provided the redacted set to the FOP as well. At a status hearing on June 22, 2012, the FOP confirmed that the redacted files were intelligible and of value to it. Nonetheless, it argued that the MPD had redacted more information than necessary to protect the unidentified officers’ anonymity and personal privacy. The FOP gave the court and the MPD a binder of pages from the five sample files displaying what it considered to be excessive redaction. In some instances, entire sentences or paragraphs had been blacked out. For its part, the court expressed the preliminary view that the MPD’s redactions 6 appeared to be generally reasonable, apart from some obviously inadvertent mistakes (which the District conceded). The court directed the parties to confer and try to agree on which redactions were appropriate. A month later, at the next status hearing, the parties reported having made progress, but some redactions in the five sample files were still in dispute.5 Stating that, in general, it found the MPD’s remaining redactions to have been reasonable, the court cautioned the District not to be “overly active in redacting” and urged the parties to continue working to resolve their outstanding disagreements. The District agreed to produce the rest of the disciplinary files covered by the FOIA request.
of the Remaining Responsive Files On December 14, 2012, the parties appeared before the court once again. By this time, the District had produced redacted copies of all the remaining 5 One particular contested redaction discussed at the hearing concerned the possible effect of a pregnant officer’s psychiatric treatment and medication on her job performance. The District argued, and the court agreed, that the disclosure of this information would make it easier for the FOP to identify the officer and thus result in a serious invasion of her privacy. 7 disciplinary files (in what the parties have referred to as the District’s second production, to distinguish it from the initial production of five sample files). But disagreements remained regarding the District’s redactions, which the parties addressed at the hearing and in subsequent briefing. First, claiming that the sample files in the District’s initial production had been redacted more heavily than the 26 files in the second production, the FOP argued that this inconsistency demonstrated that the sample files had been overredacted and needed to be re-produced with fewer deletions. The District disagreed, contending that the sample files had been redacted in accordance with FOIA’s requirements even if they did contain more redactions than the other files. Second, despite its prior agreement that the District should redact physical descriptions and other identifiers of officers involved in the disciplinary proceedings, the FOP objected to the redaction of references to gender, race, and event dates in some of the documents in the two productions. It argued that this information could not reveal the identities of any officers, given that the police force had nearly 4,000 members. In response, the District explained that the MPD 8 had removed references to gender, race, and event dates in the disciplinary files only where it believed the information actually would enable the FOP and its members to identify the officers in question. Identification would be easier than the FOP suggested, the District argued, because the FOIA requests targeted disciplinary proceedings involving only higher ranking officers, who constituted a subset of the police force.
The court ruled on the FOP’s objections at a hearing on August 30, 2013. Regarding the sample files produced for in camera inspection, the court stated that it had “exhaustively” performed “a very detailed,” “comprehensive” examination of all of the submitted documents in unredacted and redacted form. Based on that examination, the court concluded that all the redactions were proper, regardless of whether there were fewer redactions in the files subsequently produced. The court 9 therefore rejected the FOP’s call for the District to re-redact and re-produce the first group of five disciplinary files. The court also upheld the MPD’s excision of references to gender, race, and event date in order to prevent unwarranted invasions of personal privacy. It was not persuaded by FOP’s contention that these redactions were unnecessary to protect the anonymity of disciplined officers in view of the total size of the police force. “[I]n many cases,” the court found, the revelation of gender, race, or date information could enable the FOP to identify individuals involved in the disciplinary proceedings, and the risk of such identification by FOP members with “specialized knowledge” of the MPD or personal familiarity with the disciplined officers was “not trivial.” For example, the court noted, the FOP might have little difficulty overcoming the anonymity of an officer with “a relatively uncommon combination of race and gender . . . , particular[ly] if it’s possible to determine what district the officer was assigned in, dates [o]n which [the officer] worked,” or other facts that would aid the identification process. The court emphasized that the MPD had not applied an “inflexible policy” of redacting all references in the disciplinary files to gender, race, and date, because it appropriately recognized that the risk of identifying a subject officer varied from case to case. 10 The court further found that the personal privacy interests implicated by the redactions “greatly outweighed” any public interest that the FOP had proffered in calling for disclosure of the gender, race, and date data. Disclosure of the identities of the officers subject to police discipline could expose them to public humiliation and affect their professional and personal relationships. Against the officers’ consequent interest in preserving their anonymity by means of the challenged redactions, the FOP had asserted its interests in educating and defending police officers faced with disciplinary action, and in ensuring that “discipline is being applied equally across racial and gender lines.” The court found that the former is a private interest of the FOP rather than a public interest, and that, in any event, the FOP did not need the redacted information in order to educate and defend officers properly. As for uncovering racial or gender disparities in discipline, the court reasoned that the FOP could accomplish this goal without jeopardizing the privacy of individuals by getting composite statistical information about the gender and race of disciplined officers.6 6 In balancing the public and privacy interests at stake, the court initially cited this court’s opinion in Hines v. District of Columbia Board of Parole, 567 A.2d 909 (D.C. 1989), for the proposition that the personal privacy exemption is “broader” than the other exemptions in the D.C. FOIA. The FOP argued that this was a misreading of Hines, and that the presumption in favor of disclosure is “as broad” when personal privacy is invoked as it is when any other FOIA exemption is asserted. Even so, the court responded, the balance of interests still “very clearly” justified the challenged redactions. 11