Opinion ID: 3062208
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Federal Wiretapping Claims

Text: The federal wiretap statute makes it unlawful to “intentionally intercept[] . . . any wire, oral, or electronic communication” or to intentionally use or disclose the contents of any communications known to be illegally obtained. 18 U.S.C. § 2511(1)(a), (c), (d). It 14 authorizes civil actions against violators to recover statutory damages, punitive damages, reasonable attorney fees, and other litigation costs. See id. § 2520. The statute, however, provides an exception when one party to the communication has given prior consent to the interception, see id. § 2511(2)(d), and recognizes a defense for good-faith reliance on a court order, see id. § 2520(d). The parties agree that § 2520(d) applies in this context and they agree on the applicable test for good faith: “[A] defendant may invoke the defense of good faith reliance on a court order only if he can demonstrate (1) that he had a subjective good faith belief that he acted legally pursuant to a court order; and (2) that this belief was reasonable.” Jacobson v. Rose, 592 F.2d 515, 523 (9th Cir. 1978). We will apply that test for purposes of this litigation. Ms. Dahl alleges that Dr. Dahl and his attorney, Ms. Blakelock, violated the federal wiretap statute when they recorded or used recordings of telephone conversations that she had with C.D. on October 12, 2009, and thereafter. We first address Ms. Dahl’s argument regarding the October 12 conversation—which all parties agree Dr. Dahl recorded—and then turn to Ms. Dahl’s allegations that there were later recordings. Dr. Dahl contends that he recorded the October 12 conversation in reliance on the state court’s order of July 18, 2007. Ms. Dahl does not dispute Dr. Dahl’s subjective reliance on the order, but only the objective reasonableness of that reliance. The July 18 order stated: “[Ms. Dahl] is hereby restrained from unmonitored telephone communications with the minor children. All telephone communications between the minor children and [Ms. Dahl] may be monitored by [Dr. Dahl].” Aplt. App., Vol. 1 at 15 104. Ms. Dahl argues that the court lifted the order permitting monitoring when it granted her unsupervised visitation on October 7, 2009. In particular, she points to the language in the October 7 order regarding telephone restrictions: Telephone restrictions, the children should be able to call either parent, except that whichever parent they’re physically with at the time may impose reasonable time limit restraints. So no calls after ten or no midnight calls. That’s a reasonable [prerogative] of the custodial parent. Id. at 363. She says that it is “unambiguous” that the order does not allow Dr. Dahl to record her calls. Aplt. Br. at 38. She also offers the judge’s comments on November 3, 2009, admonishing the parties not to break the law, as additional evidence that the October 7 order removed any authorization to record her calls. We are not persuaded. There was an outstanding, unchallenged order allowing monitoring—the order of July 18, 2007. The court did not mention that order on October 7, much less vacate it. The termination of supervised visitation might indicate that the court thought monitoring was no longer proper; but the court described the new arrangement as a “stopgap” and it wanted a follow-up report from the GAL on how the new arrangement was working. Aplt. App., Vol. 2 at 363. Thus, it would have been reasonable to conclude that monitoring would still be useful to assess the loosening of restrictions on Ms. Dahl and that it was still approved. Ms. Dahl contends that the court’s statements on November 3 establish that its statements on October 7 had prohibited further monitoring. But what the court said in November could not affect Dr. Dahl’s interpretation on October 12 of the court’s prior statements. And, in our view, the 16 November 3 statements actually support Dr. Dahl. When the court said to Ms. Dahl on November 3 that “I’ve just removed a pretty important source of information,” id. at 404, the natural inference is that it was referring to its immediately preceding remarks saying that third-party recording of conversations is illegal. We doubt that the court was saying that its ruling a month earlier was what “I’ve just [done].” Id. We hold that it was objectively reasonable for Dr. Dahl to believe that the monitoring of the October 12 conversation was authorized by the court’s order of July 18, 2007. We therefore need not address the vicarious-consent doctrine relied on by the district court. We now turn to the alleged monitoring of conversations after November 3, 2009. The sole defense of Dr. Dahl and Ms. Blakelock is that there is no evidence of any monitoring after October 12. The district court apparently agreed that there was no such monitoring, because it did not address the matter. In our view, however, Ms. Dahl put on sufficient evidence in her response to the motion for summary judgment to raise a genuine issue regarding whether such monitoring occurred. Ms. Dahl submitted an affidavit stating: 34. On about December 27, 2009, I learned that Dr. Dahl had continued to record my telephone conversations, and I obtained fifteen digital recordings of telephone conversations that I had with either C.D. or D.D. 35. At least two of the telephone conversations were wiretapped in December 2009 because during one of them, I asked C.D. if she was excited to sing in a Christmas concert the next week. Id. at 409. Defendants argue that “[n]o corroboration, proof, foundation or authentication of the conversations or the statement was offered to the court in 17 response to the motion for summary judgment that was pending for over four months.” Aplee. (Dahl and Blakelock) Br. at 43–44. But Ms. Dahl’s sworn statement, based on personal knowledge, suffices. See Sanchez v. Vilsack, 695 F.3d 1174, 1180 n.4 (10th Cir. 2012) (“So long as an affidavit is based upon personal knowledge and sets forth facts that would be admissible in evidence it is legally competent to oppose summary judgment, irrespective of its self-serving nature.” (brackets, citations, and internal quotation marks omitted)). She did not need to produce the recordings of other conversations at the summary-judgment stage. Even if the affidavit could be challenged on whether she had personal knowledge of the dates of the recordings, her statement about the Christmas concert was sufficient to raise a genuine fact question. We therefore must remand to the district court for further proceedings regarding the alleged monitoring after November 3.