Opinion ID: 175946
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Intentional or Willful Finding

Text: The district court found that SIA Jones's course of conduct resulted in a disclosure under the Privacy Act, specifically 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b) & (g)(1)(D), and that his actions were intentional or willful within the meaning of § 552a(g)(4), although his final act of leaving the folder unsecured was inadvertent. Before deciding whether the district court erred in finding that SIA Jones's actions satisfied the intentional or willful standard of conduct, we must determine whether the district court erred in looking to the entire course of conduct for its determination of whether the agency acted in a manner which was intentional or willful, rather than looking to SIA Jones's final act of inadvertently leaving the folder on the desk. Under § 552a(g)(1)(D), the Privacy Act provides a civil remedy to an individual for an agency's fail[ure] to comply with any other provision of this section, or any rule promulgated thereunder, in such a way as to have an adverse effect on an individual. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(g)(1)(D). Thus, an individual may bring a civil action under § 552a(g)(1)(D) if he or she is adversely affected by an agency's failure to comply with § 552a(b)'s requirement that [n]o agency shall disclose any record which is contained in a system of records by any means of communication to any person, or to another agency, except pursuant to a written request by, or with the prior written consent of, the individual to whom the record pertains. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b). Under § 552a(g)(4), a Privacy Act plaintiff who can prove actual damages is entitled to recover the greater of actual damages or $1,000 [i]n any suit brought under the provisions of subsection (g)(1)(C) or (D) of this section in which the court determines that the agency acted in a manner which was intentional or willful. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(g)(4). The main issue before us is whether the requirement under § 552a(g)(4) that the district court find that the agency acted in a manner which was intentional or willful requires the court to find that the final act that resulted in the disclosure was intentional or willful or whether the court may find that the entire course of conduct that resulted in the disclosure was intentional or willful. No court has specifically interpreted § 552a(g)(4) in the light this panel must address; therefore we must engage de novo in the analysis of what a court may consider in determining whether the agency acted in a manner which was intentional or willful. As recently stated, we employ[] a three-step legislative-interpretation framework established by the Supreme Court: `first, a natural reading of the full text; second, the common-law meaning of the statutory terms; and finally, consideration of the statutory and legislative history for guidance,' Lockhart v. Napolitano, 573 F.3d 251, 255 (6th Cir.2009) (quoting United States ex rel. A+ Homecare, Inc. v. Medshares Mgmt. Group, Inc., 400 F.3d 428, 442 (6th Cir.2005) (citing United States v. Wells, 519 U.S. 482, 490-92 [117 S.Ct. 921, 137 L.Ed.2d 107] (1997))). The natural reading of the full text requires that we examine the statute for its plain meaning, including `the language and design of the statute as a whole.' Id. (quoting [ United States v. ] Parrett, 530 F.3d [422,] 429 [(6th Cir. 2008)]). If the statutory language is not clear, we may examine the relevant legislative history. Parrett, 530 F.3d at 429. Elgharib v. Napolitano, 600 F.3d 597, 601 (6th Cir.2010). We begin with the recognition that the language of § 552a(g)(4) at issue is ambiguous. And although we have not found any cases in which the court stated explicitly which actions a district court may consider in determining whether the agency acted in a manner which was intentional or willful, several Privacy Act cases are instructive. In Doe v. Chao , the Supreme Court interpreted the interplay between § 552a(g)(1)(D) and § 552a(g)(4) to decide whether a plaintiff suing under § 552a(g)(1)(D) must prove actual damages under § 552a(g)(4) before he or she is entitled to the statutory minimum under § 552a(g)(4). Doe v. Chao, 540 U.S. 614, 124 S.Ct. 1204, 157 L.Ed.2d 1122 (2004). Although the Court did not address the specific issue before this panel (because the government did not challenge the finding that the agency acted in an intentional or willful manner), the Court found that subsection (g)(1)(D) is intended to deal with derelictions having consequences beyond the statutory violations per se  and speaks of a violation when someone suffers an `adverse effect' from any other failure [not covered under subsections (g)(1)(A)-(C)] to hew to the terms of the Act. Id. at 619, 124 S.Ct. 1204. The Court's opinion can thus be read to endorse a broader interpretation of what actions a court may consider in determining whether the agency acted in a manner which was intentional or willful. Indeed throughout the opinion the Court referred to subsection (g)(4) as covering damages for an intentional or willful violation, see, e.g., id. at 620-22, 627, 124 S.Ct. 1204 (emphasis added), and Justice Ginsburg in dissent interpreted the language of (g)(4) relevant for our purposes to cover an agency's intentional or willful commission of a Privacy Act violation of the kind described in § 552a(g)(1)(C) or (D). [6] Id. at 628, 124 S.Ct. 1204 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (emphasis added). Even though many courts have interpreted what intentional or willful means under § 552a(g)(4), [7] none have set forth an interpretation of what a court may consider in determining whether the agency acted in a manner that meets this standard. Under our precedent, Privacy Act damages are recoverable only if the Plaintiffs prove that the Defendants acted intentionally or willfullya standard `somewhat greater than gross negligence' `either by committing the act without grounds for believing it to be lawful, or flagrantly disregarding others' rights under the [Privacy] Act.' Mount v. U.S. Postal Serv., 79 F.3d 531, 533 (6th Cir.1996) (quoting White v. Office of Pers. Mgmt., 840 F.2d 85, 87 (D.C.Cir.1988); Wilborn v. Dep't of Health & Human Servs., 49 F.3d 597, 602 (9th Cir.1995)). We have noted that the Privacy Act is an attempt `to strike a balance between the government's need to collect and maintain information and the privacy interests of the persons to whom such information pertains.' Cardamone v. Cohen, 241 F.3d 520, 524 (6th Cir.2001) (quoting Hudson, 130 F.3d at 1204). From our review of the cases in this area, we conclude that courts determining whether a Privacy Act violation occurred have not differentiated between the final act and the course of action that results in the final act, but rather courts generally look to the entire course of conduct in context. In an early case interpreting § 552a(g)(4) in a suit under § 552a(g)(1)(D) for a disclosure violation, the Tenth Circuit looked to the entire course of conduct engaged in by IRS agents to find that the plaintiffs would be able to allege intentional or willful agency actions on remand. Parks v. Internal Revenue Serv., 618 F.2d 677, 683 (10th Cir.1980) (considering allegations that the agency published lists containing the plaintiffs' personal information, furnished the lists to IRS employees, and condoned the use of the information in the lists to contact the plaintiffs for solicitations). Other circuit courts since have applied this reasoning, and the D.C. Circuit has explicitly stated that [t]he agency's actions must be viewed in their context to determine whether the agency's staff acted in a willful or intentional manner. Waters v. Thornburgh, 888 F.2d 870, 876 (D.C.Cir. 1989) (citing Albright v. United States, 732 F.2d 181, 189 (D.C.Cir.1984)), abrogated on other grounds by Doe, 540 U.S. 614, 124 S.Ct. 1204; id. at 876-77 (looking to, among other things, the events that led up to sending the letter in finding genuine issue of material fact regarding intent); Albright, 732 F.2d at 189-90 (considering agency's actions prior to and after decision to videotape meeting, including subsequent offer to destroy videotape at issue, in finding actions not intentional or willful); see also Dong v. Smithsonian Inst., 943 F.Supp. 69, 73 (D.D.C.1996) (applying Waters and looking at agency's notice of its obligations under the Act and lack of effort to abide by Act prior to violation to find intentional or willful action because reckless disregard for rights); Romero-Vargas v. Shalala, 907 F.Supp. 1128, 1131, 1133-34 (N.D.Ohio 1995) (finding intentional or willful disclosure based on flagrant disregard where no effort made to comply with Act and each step that agency employee took was in violation of internal guidelines and led to Act violation). Without the aid of prior interpretations directly on point for what a court may consider in determining whether the agency acted in a manner which was intentional or willful and faced with admittedly ambiguous language, we will look to Congress's intent regarding § 552a(g)(4) as shown in the legislative history. As the preface to the public law stated, The purpose of this Act is to provide certain safeguards for an individual against an invasion of personal privacy by requiring federal agencies, except as otherwise provided by law, to . . . be subject to civil suit for any damages which occur as a result of willful or intentional action which violates any individual's rights under this Act. Privacy Act of 1974, Pub.L. No. 93-579, § 2(b)(6), 88 Stat. 1896 (codified as amended at 5 U.S.C. § 552a). The Senate Report accompanying the original Senate version of the Act states that one of the purposes of the Act is to prevent the kind of illegal, unwise, overbroad, investigation and record surveillance of law-abiding citizens produced in recent years from actions of some over-zealous investigators, and the curiosity of some government administrators, or the wrongful disclosure and use, in some cases, of personal files held by Federal agencies. S.REP. NO. 93-1183, at 1 (1974), reprinted in JOINT COMM. ON GOV'T OPERATIONS, LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE PRIVACY ACT OF 1974, S. 3418 (PUBLIC LAW 93-579): SOURCE BOOK ON PRIVACY 154 (1976) (hereinafter SOURCE BOOK). The Privacy Act was passed in the relatively short period between the Thanksgiving recess and the end of the 93rd congressional session and reflects the merger of seemingly disparate bills from the Senate and the House. ABA SECTION OF ADMIN. LAW & REGULATORY PRACTICE, FEDERAL ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE SOURCEBOOK 1083 (William F. Funk et al. eds., 4th ed. 2008). This short time-frame led the two houses of Congress to forgo the usual conference committee and, instead, to reach an agreement to pass identical bills through informal meetings between the respective staffs of the two houses' committees, with the amendments to each version included in their respective records. Id. A staff memorandum entitled Analysis of House and Senate Compromise Amendments to the Federal Privacy Act is [t]he only record of the final negotiations leading to the bill actually adopted. ABA SECTION OF ADMIN. LAW & REGULATORY PRACTICE, supra, at 1083; 120 Cong. Rec. 40,405-08, 40,881-83 (1974), reprinted in SOURCE BOOK, supra, at 858, 985. The analysis explains the compromise reached for including the intentional or willful standard of conduct rather than a greater standard of willful, arbitrary, or capricious action or a lesser standard of negligent action (or no standard at all, as some members of Congress had advocated), [8] but does not address what actions a court could examine in making its finding. 120 Cong. Rec. 40,406-07; SOURCE BOOK, supra, at 861-62 (explaining that [o]n a continuum between negligence and the very high standard of willful, arbitrary, or capricious conduct, this standard is viewed as only somewhat greater than gross negligence). Not once did the Congress address the scope of a court's analysis under § 552a(g)(4). Consistent with the language of the Act, other courts' interpretations, and the legislative history, we conclude that a court may consider the entire course of conduct that resulted in the disclosure in making its required finding under § 552a(g)(4). Such an interpretation will allow recovery under circumstances similar to those here, where an agency's actions, although inadvertent at the last step, were in flagrant disregard of the plaintiff's rights under the Privacy Act at other steps along the way and afterward, but would deny recovery where an agency's actions were conscientious of Privacy Act rights throughout and contravened the Act inadvertently only at the last stepas where an employee with full rights to access personal information took every precaution to safeguard that information, but had it stolen and disclosed through no fault of his or her own while working away from the office. [9] Only a context-based analysis will allow a court to distinguish between such situations and fulfill the Privacy Act's intended purpose`to strike a balance between the government's need to collect and maintain information and the privacy interests of the persons to whom such information pertains.' Cardamone, 241 F.3d at 524 (quoting Hudson, 130 F.3d at 1204); see Pilon v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 73 F.3d 1111, 1118 (D.C.Cir.1996) (Recognizing the [Privacy] Act's varied ambiguities, we have consistently turned back `neat legal maneuver[s],' attempted by the government that, while literally consistent with the Act's terms, were not in keeping with the privacy-protection responsibilities that Congress intended to assign to agencies under the Act. (quoting Benavides v. U.S. Bureau of Prisons, 995 F.2d 269, 272 (D.C.Cir.1993))); see also United Savings Ass'n v. Timbers of Inwood Forest Assocs., 484 U.S. 365, 371, 108 S.Ct. 626, 98 L.Ed.2d 740 (1988) (Statutory construction.. . is a holistic endeavor. A provision that may seem ambiguous in isolation is often clarified by the remainder of the statutory scheme. . . because only one of the permissible meanings produces a substantive effect that is compatible with the rest of the law. . . . (citations omitted)); Kostyu v. United States, 742 F.Supp. 413, 417 (E.D.Mich.1990) (By requiring a showing that any violation of the Act be willful and [sic] intentional, it is clear that Congress intended to reserve civil liability only for those lapses which constituted an extraordinary departure from standards of reasonable conduct.). With this framework in mind, we may now decide whether the district court erred in finding that SIA Jones's actions satisfied the intentional or willful standard of conduct. Here, the district court applied the correct legal standard, and its credibility-based findings of fact are supported by the record and not clearly erroneous. The Defendants are correct that the district court's finding that SIA Jones's final act of leaving the folder was inadvertent appears to be inconsistent with a finding that the agency's course of conduct was intentional or willful. An action that is inadvertent likely is not intentional, but could still be sufficiently willful to violate the Act. Albright, 732 F.2d at 189. A review of the facts in the instant case supports the district court's conclusion. Although neither party here could point to a case factually similar to the instant case, we conclude that the district court did not commit clear error in finding that SIA Jones's course of conduct was willful. SIA Jones carried the folder, which he knew to contain confidential and sensitive information, into an inmate-accessible work area for the purpose of carrying out his own investigative work should he need to call a UNICOR computer administrator at home. Yet the roster not only listed the home telephone numbers of UNICOR computer administrators but also included detailed private and personal information related to all FMC employees. SIA Jones's asserted need for some of the information while inside the UNICOR facility did not provide a legitimate basis for him to have the entire contents of the folder with him at the time to mitigate his Privacy Act violation. Moreover, the roster was contained in a folder not properly marked LOU-Sensitive, [10] and this and other instances of SIA Jones's conduct violated several BOP Program Statements. See White v. Office of Pers. Mgmt., 840 F.2d 85, 87 (D.C.Cir.1988) (A plain failure to comply with established [agency] policy might constitute `willful' or `intentional' conduct actionable under § 552a(g)(4).). Thus the district court's finding that SIA Jones willfully violated the Privacy Act by flagrantly disregarding the FMC employees' rights under the Act was not clearly erroneousSIA Jones's course of conduct that resulted in his leaving the unmarked folder in an inmate-accessible area did not just inadvertently contravene one of the Act's strictures and could properly be viewed as the intentional or willful failure of the agency to abide by the Act. Albright, 732 F.2d at 189; cf. Wiley v. Dep't of Veterans Affairs, 176 F.Supp.2d 747, 756-57 (E.D.Mich.2001) (finding agency's mere inattention to detail in disclosing entire file, seemingly without any effort to identify those items within scope of request, rose at most to level of gross negligence). Therefore, we affirm the district court's judgment that the agency acted in a manner which was . . . willful under § 552a(g)(4), triggering liability under the Act.