Opinion ID: 2731284
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Other Categories of Documents

Text: Kowack also challenges the redaction of grievance-related documents created by the National Federation of Employees and complaints made by employees other than Kowack to the center director pursuant to the personal privacy exemption.1 The grievance documents were redacted to withhold “[a]ny information that would identify individual employees other than KOWACK including names, and dates and details of specific incidents.” The informal complaint was redacted to “remove the name and other identifying information of the complainant and the content of the complaint and response.” Because the public interest in disclosure of these documents is minimal, the documents were properly withheld. Courts have recognized that, where there is no public interest, “we need not linger over the balance” between the public and private interests implicated by a particular document because “something, even a modest privacy interest, outweighs nothing every time.” Nat’l Ass’n of Retired Fed. Emps. v. Horner, 879 F.2d 873, 879 (D.C. Cir. 1989). The Turner declaration sufficiently demonstrates that there is likely no public interest in these documents. 1 Although the government also redacted a fifth category of documents—disciplinary letters issued to employees other than Kowack—Kowack’s opening brief doesn’t contain any specific argument about these documents. Any challenge to the redaction of those documents is therefore waived. See Retlaw Broad. Co. v. NLRB, 53 F.3d 1002, 1005 n.1 (9th Cir. 1995). 14 KOWACK V. USFS The grievance-related documents, which include “a notice of intent to file an unfair labor practice charge on behalf of an individual employee other than KOWACK and a pre- grievance settlement agreement,” concern “the denial of Weingarten rights to an individual employee other than Kowack.” Weingarten guarantees the right of employees to have union representation at investigatory interviews. NLRB v. Weingarten, Inc., 420 U.S. 251, 253 (1975). While documents that would demonstrate a pattern of the denial of Weingarten rights could “she[d] light on [the Forest Service’s] performance of its statutory duties,” U.S. Dep’t of Defense, 510 U.S. at 497, at most, the documents that Kowack has requested would shed light on one employee’s complaint, greatly limiting its ability to reveal anything significant about the way the Forest Service generally operates. See Hunt v. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 972 F.2d 286, 288–89 (9th Cir. 1992) (contrasting the public interest in a request for a single disciplinary file with that in a request for multiple files). The public interest in the documents therefore could not possibly outweigh the employee’s privacy interest, even if that interest is minimal. The Turner declaration similarly demonstrates the lack of public interest in the informal complaint to the center director and the director’s response. Those documents “concern unsubstantiated allegations and complaints made by one employee and the response to the employee by the Center Director.” Like the grievance documents, this category of documents concerns only one complaint, and an unsubstantiated one at that. The privacy interest in these documents may be small—Turner doesn’t provide enough detail for us to determine whether disclosure of any of the information would allow for the identification of the employee involved. But there is undoubtedly some privacy KOWACK V. USFS 15 interest in the submission of non-formal complaints. See Forest Serv. Emps., 524 F.3d at 1026. And even that limited privacy interest is enough to outweigh whatever marginal public interest may exist in disclosure.2 See id.