Opinion ID: 691129
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Destruction of Records

Text: The district court also noted that the ALJ could not have violated the Privacy Act's prohibition on the disclosure of records, because Wilborn's personnel file had been purged of all references to the PIP. The court reasoned that not only was there no retrieval, there was no longer a record capable of being retrieved. This ruling of the district court also is inconsistent with the spirit of the Privacy Act. Under its reasoning, an agency official could sidestep the Privacy Act merely by removing a document from the system of records first, before disclosing its contents. Allowing the government to escape liability for a disclosure by the ALJ of information that had been removed from the system of records by him following Wilborn's grievance, would make a mockery of the Privacy Act. 4 The fact that the agency ordered expungement of all information relating to the PIP makes the ALJ's disclosure, if anything, more rather than less objectionable. For these reasons we reverse the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the HHS.