Opinion ID: 155524
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Disclosure of Disciplinary Records

Text: 56 The Privacy Act of 1974 limits the circumstances under which government agencies, including the IRS, may disclose information contained in their records. In general, the Act provides that: 57 No 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 58 .... 59 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b) (1994); accord 5 C.F.R. § 297.401 (1996) (specifically applying to personnel records of government employees). However, the Act goes on to enumerate twelve exceptions to this general prohibition. See id. 60 Pippinger, who did not consent to any disclosure, claims that the IRS unlawfully disclosed his employment records on three different occasions. In analyzing each of these three claims, we must decide whether a record was disclosed, and, if so, whether it was disclosed pursuant to an exception enumerated in 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b). 61 Although disclosure is not defined in the text of the Privacy Act, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has defined disclosure under the Privacy Act to mean providing personal review of a record, or a copy thereof, to someone other than the data subject or the data subject's authorized representative.... 5 C.F.R. § 297.102 (1997). Although the OPM's definition of disclosure would appear to be limited to disclosures of the physical records themselves (or mechanical reproductions thereof), this court and other courts have assumed or held that the Privacy Act more broadly prohibits disclosure of information directly or indirectly derived from an agency system of records, even where the physical records are not disclosed. See Wilborn v. Department of Health and Human Servs., 49 F.3d 597, 600 (9th Cir.1995) (Under a long line of cases interpreting the Privacy Act, courts have agreed that the Act covers more than the mere physical dissemination of records ... [because] the Privacy Act, if it is to be given any force and effect, must be interpreted in a way that does not 'go against the spirit' of the Act.) (citing cases); Kline v. Department of Health and Human Servs., 927 F.2d 522, 524 (10th Cir.1991); Thomas v. United States Dep't of Energy, 719 F.2d 342, 345 (10th Cir.1983). Accord 5 C.F.R. § 293.406 (1997) (Disclosure of information from this file system shall be made only as permitted by the Privacy Act ....) (emphasis added). 62 As the Wilborn court explained:the Privacy Act applies to a situation where an agency official uses the government's sophisticated information collecting methods to acquire personal information for inclusion in a record, and then discloses that information in an unauthorized fashion without actually physically retrieving it from the record system. 63 Id. at 601 (quoting Bartel v. FAA, 725 F.2d 1403, 1410 (D.C.Cir.1984)) (emphasis in Wilborn ) (internal punctuation marks omitted). 64 The courts' broad interpretation of the Privacy Act's prohibition against disclosure is clearly consistent with Congressional intent. As the Joint House and Senate Report explained, a primary purpose of 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b) is to: 65 require employees to refrain from disclosing records or personal data in them, within the agency other than to officers or employees who have a need for such record or data in the performance of their duties for the agency. 66 This section is designed to prevent the office gossip, interoffice and interbureau leaks of information about persons of interest in the agency or community, or such actions as the publicizing of information of a sensational or salacious nature or of that detrimental to character or reputation. 67 S.Rep. No. 93-1183, H.R.Rep. No. 93-1416, at 51 (1974) (emphasis added), reprinted in 1974 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6916, 6966, and quoted in part in Parks v. Internal Revenue Serv., 618 F.2d 677, 681 n. 1 (10th Cir.1980). 68 With these broad purposes in mind, we proceed to analyze Pippinger's claim that improper disclosures were made on three occasions.
69 As discussed in the Background Section, supra, Stephen Taylor began his job as IRS District Director in Cheyenne on June 1, 1993. At that time, Lynn Boak had already been transferred away from Pippinger's supervision, and the investigation of Pippinger's conduct was set to be closed without any action being taken. Taylor had not been present in the office from November 1992 to April 1993, when the events underlying Pippinger's subsequent suspension occurred. Thus, Taylor learned everything he knew about the Pippinger case by reviewing Pippinger's records and by consulting Taylor's staff. 70 Specifically, Taylor consulted with Pippinger's direct supervisor Patrick Schluck, Taylor's administrative officer Steve Webb, Denver-based IRS labor relations specialists Joni Probasco and DeWayne Wicks, IRS Public Affairs/Ethics Officer Tim Harms, Chief Richard Harrod of the IRS Collection and Taxpayer Service Division, and Cheyenne district Equal Employment Opportunity Officer Robert Sonntag. Pippinger concedes that Schluck and Webb were appropriately involved in these discussions, and he does not make an issue of Probasco's or Wicks's participation. However, Pippinger contends that his Privacy Act rights were violated by improper disclosures made during Taylor's consultations with Harms, Harrod, and Sonntag regarding whether disciplinary action against Pippinger should be pursued. 71 The IRS does not concede that Taylor disclosed any protected record to Harms, Harrod, or Sonntag. Nonetheless, the district court appropriately assumed for purposes of summary judgment that such records were disclosed. Pippinger, slip op. at 8-9. Even under this assumption, the district court held that Taylor did not violate the Privacy Act because: (1) Taylor's staff had a need for the record in the performance of their duties, a condition which allows disclosure to them under 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(1) (1994) and 5 C.F.R. § 293.402(c)(1) (1997), and (2) Taylor did not act[ ] in a manner which was intentional or willful, a requirement for governmental liability under 5 U.S.C. § 552a(g)(4) (1994). See Pippinger, slip op. at 8-9. Pippinger counters that Taylor's staff members did not need to know Pippinger's name in order to do their jobs, and that Taylor's disclosure of Pippinger's name to Taylor's staff members therefore constituted a willful or intentional violation of Pippinger's privacy. 72 Taylor's staff members' jobs included helping Taylor decide whether and how to discipline Pippinger. For this reason, the staff members clearly needed to know the information contained in Pippinger's files pertaining to Pippinger's relationship with Boak and his subsequent allegedly misleading statements pertaining thereto. In addition, contrary to Pippinger's argument, knowledge of Pippinger's identity allowed Taylor's staff members to put the investigation in context, and might potentially have enabled them to connect the information about Pippinger's alleged misconduct with other data already know to them. Because of the inherent difficulty of investigating an unidentified individual, a supervisor conducting an investigation into bona fide allegations of employee misconduct must be allowed some latitude under the Privacy Act's need to know exception to disclose the identity of the investigation's subject to staff members who will assist in conducting and disposing of the investigation. To hold otherwise would slice the bread of the need to know exception far thinner than we believe Congress intended. 73 We also agree with the district court's second ground for holding that Taylor did not violate the Privacy Act. Under 5 U.S.C. § 552a(g)(4) (1994), a government agency may not be held liable unless the court determines that the agency acted in a manner which was intentional or willful.... In Andrews v. Veterans Admin., 838 F.2d 418 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 817, 109 S.Ct. 56, 102 L.Ed.2d 35 (1988), we defined intentional or willful under the Privacy Act to mean action so patently egregious and unlawful that anyone undertaking the conduct should have known it unlawful, or conduct committed without grounds for believing it to be lawful or action flagrantly disregarding others' rights under the Act. Andrews, 838 F.2d at 425 (internal punctuation and citations omitted). Such conduct must amount to, at the very least, reckless behavior. Id. 74 Here, Taylor's failure to redact Pippinger's name from necessary discussions of Pippinger's case certainly does not constitute an intentional or willful violation of Pippinger's privacy as defined in Andrews. Harms, Harrod, and Sonntag were fellow IRS officials whose job included helping Taylor fashion disciplinary action against Pippinger. In this context, Taylor had ample reason to believe that it was lawful for him to discuss Pippinger's case--including Pippinger's name--with his staff.
75 Pippinger also claims that the IRS violated the Privacy Act because most of the people in the Cheyenne district office of the IRS knew about Pippinger's two-day suspension and the reasons underlying it. Pippinger claims that this widespread knowledge gives rise to an inference that Taylor or one of his staff members disclosed private information about Pippinger to Pippinger's co-workers. 76 The district court rejected this claim, noting that [t]o the extent [Pippinger] argues that other individuals knew about his relationship with Ms. Boak and his suspension, there is no evidence in the record that such information was disclosed by Taylor or someone else within an agency who had learned the information from [Pippinger's] personnel records. Pippinger, slip op. at 9. We agree. 77 In his deposition, Pippinger admitted that rumors concerning his affair had been widespread within the Cheyenne district of the IRS, even before any disciplinary action was taken against him. Pippinger further testified that he was very angry when Taylor first told him about the suspension, and that he told Taylor that if anybody asked me, I'm going to tell them the truth, including the truth about the fact that Pippinger had been suspended for two days. Pippinger admitted that he discussed the details of his suspension with his paramour/coworker Lynn Boak. Pippinger also admitted that he had told several of his coworkers about his suspension, including Robert Heuschkel and Reggie Bruce, and may also have discussed it with co-workers Marilyn Beaman, Alice Kleiman, and Kent Ewing. 78 Against this background, the mere fact that information contained in Pippinger's personnel files was well-known in his workplace does not give rise to an inference that such knowledge was widespread because of a disclosure from Pippinger's personnel files. As the district court correctly noted, the Privacy Act does not prohibit disclosure of information or knowledge obtained from sources other than records. Thomas v. United States Dep't of Energy, 719 F.2d 342, 345 (10th Cir.1983). In particular, it does not prevent federal employees or officials from talking--even gossiping--about anything of which they have non-record-based knowledge. Id. 79 A number of people in Pippinger's workplace had personally observed Pippinger's relationship with Boak. Several learned the details of Pippinger's suspension from Pippinger himself. Accordingly, in the absence of any evidence suggesting that the IRS actually disclosed information from Pippinger's records, Pippinger's inferential evidence of such disclosure cannot withstand summary judgment. 80
81 During Patrick Schluck's MSPB proceeding, IRS District Director Stephen Taylor, Administrative Officer Stephen Webb, and IRS labor relations specialists Joni Probasco and DeWayne Wicks each gave deposition testimony in which they disclosed information from the ALERTS system and from his personnel records concerning John Pippinger. This deposition testimony was heard by IRS attorney Susan Neiser, and was also heard by a private attorney representing Schluck, a court reporter, and Schluck himself. The district court found that these disclosures did not violate Pippinger's rights under the Privacy Act because they were authorized by either the need to know exception of 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(1) (1994), or the routine use exception of 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(3) (1994). See Pippinger, slip op. at 10. 82 Pippinger responds, first, by asserting that there was no need for Webb, Probasco and Wicks to disclose the information about Pippinger's case (especially Pippinger's name) that they disclosed in their depositions. Second, Pippinger claims that disclosure of information obtained from Pippinger's records to the MSPB at Schluck's MSPB proceeding was unauthorized by the Privacy Act. Third, Pippinger claims that deposition testimony is not a routine use of the records kept in the ALERTS system, and that the Privacy Act therefore prohibited any disclosure from Pippinger's records to Schluck, Schluck's attorney, and the court reporter, none of whom were then employed by the IRS. 4 We address each of Pippinger's three arguments in turn. 83 As discussed in Subpart A, supra, Taylor, Webb, Probasco, and Wicks each needed to know the information contained in Pippinger's Appeals, Grievances and Complaint System files and General Personnel and Payroll Records System files, in connection with their duties to investigate the allegations against Pippinger and recommend or implement a disposition. For similar reasons, IRS attorney Neiser also needed to know the record information about the Pippinger/Boak incident. Although Neiser was not involved in investigating Pippinger 's case, Neiser was charged with defending the IRS's actions in Schluck 's MSPB proceeding. The IRS's primary charge against Schluck was that Schluck had presided over disciplinary proceedings in which Pippinger was accused of having a romantic affair with a subordinate, while Schluck himself was in a romantic relationship with a subordinate. The IRS's position with respect to Schluck would have been rendered incomprehensible to Neiser if Neiser had not been apprised of Pippinger's situation. Further, for the reasons discussed in Subpart A, supra, redaction of Pippinger's name from Pippinger's records was not required by the Privacy Act. We thus agree with the district court that disclosures from Pippinger's files to IRS employees Taylor, Webb, Probasco, Wicks and Neiser fell squarely within the Privacy Act's need to know exception. 84 What's more, the routine use exception permits far more disclosure of records than does the need to know exception. See generally Deborah Sprenger, Annotation, What Constitutes Routine Use Disclosure of Employee Records Exempted from Provisions of Privacy Act of 1974 Under 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(3), 107 A.L.R. Fed 857 (1992 & Supp.1995). The routine use exception permits disclosure of an otherwise protected record whenever such disclosure would be for a routine use. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(3) (1994). A routine use is defined as the use of such record for a purpose which is compatible with the purpose for which it was collected. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(a)(7) (1994). Agencies that maintain a system of records are required to publish in the Federal Register a notice of each routine use of the records contained in the system, including the categories of users and the purpose of each use. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(4)(D) (1994). Records may be disclosed under the routine use exception only under a routine use published ... for the system of records covering [the disclosed] records. 5 C.F.R. § 293.406 (1997). 85 As discussed in Part I, supra, Pippinger's records, though stored in the ALERTS system, were culled from two systems of records described in the Federal Register: the Appeals, Grievance, and Complaint System; and the General Personnel and Payroll Records System. The routine uses of records in both systems have been defined in the Federal Register to include provid[ing] records and information to the ... Merit Systems Protection Board ... for the purpose of properly administering Federal Personnel Systems in accordance with applicable laws, Executive Orders, and regulations. 57 Fed.Reg. 14,056, 14,057 (Appeals, Grievance, and Complaint System); id. at 14,059 (General Personnel and Payroll Records System). 86 This language is broad enough to authorize the disclosure of Pippinger 's records to the Merit Systems Protection Board during the course of Schluck 's MSPB proceeding, so long as such disclosure is made for the purpose of properly administering Federal Personnel Systems. Id. In the case at bar, Pippinger has presented no evidence suggesting that his records were disclosed to the MSPB for any other purpose. Accordingly, the disclosures made by Taylor, Webb, Probasco, Wicks, and Neiser to the MSPB were authorized, routine uses of Pippinger's records. 87 The disclosures to Schluck, Schluck's attorney, and the court reporter were similarly made in conjunction with the MSPB proceeding and, accordingly, fall within the same routine use exception. One of the published uses for these systems of records is to allow the IRS to disclose relevant, non-privileged information to a court, magistrate, or administrative tribunal, including ... disclosure to opposing counsel or witnesses in the course of civil discovery.... 57 Fed.Reg. 14,056, 14,057 (Apr. 17, 1992) (Appeals, Grievance, and Complaint System) (emphasis added); accord id. at 14,059 (General Personnel and Payroll Records System). To avoid circularity, the qualifier non-privileged can only refer to privileges existing outside of the Privacy Act itself, such as the attorney-client privilege or the doctor-patient privilege. Otherwise, this particular routine use exception could never be invoked. Cf. Laxalt v. McClatchy, 809 F.2d 885, 888 (D.C.Cir.1987) (analyzing the pursuant to the order of a court of competent jurisdiction exception to the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(11)) and holding that the Act does not create any additional privileges that would collide with the federal civil rules of discovery); Bosaw v. National Treasury Employees' Union, 887 F.Supp. 1199, 1216 (S.D.Ind.1995)(same). Thus, the disclosures to Schluck, Schluck's attorney, and the court reporter were authorized under the routine use exception to the Privacy Act. 88 Furthermore, we hold that Pippinger has no cause of action against the IRS for two additional reasons. First, Pippinger has presented no evidence indicating that the disclosures to Schluck, Schluck's attorney, or the court reporter, could possibly have had an adverse effect on Pippinger, as required under 5 U.S.C. § 552a(g)(1)(D) (1994); see also Parks v. Internal Revenue Serv., 618 F.2d 677, 682 (10th Cir.1980) (Privacy Act plaintiff must be adversely affected by the violation in order to state a cause of action). Although Schluck no longer worked for the IRS at the time of the disclosure, he had been privy to every event described in Pippinger's records at the time the event occurred. We simply fail to see how disclosure to Schluck of facts already known to Schluck could adversely affect Pippinger. See generally George Chamberlin, Annotation, Applicability of § 3(b) of Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)), Requiring Individual's Consent to Disclosure of Agency Records Maintained on Individual, To Disclosure of Information Otherwise Known to Federal Agency or Official, 52 A.L.R.Fed 579 (1981 & Supp.1995). 89 Similarly, Schluck would certainly have discussed with his attorney the events leading to Schluck's demotion. In doing so, Schluck could not have avoided telling the attorney about the Pippinger affair. Thus, Schluck's attorney, like Schluck, would already have known the disclosed information about Pippinger at the time of the disclosure. Finally, Pippinger has made no attempt to explain how disclosure to the court reporter adversely affected him. Thus, we hold that Pippinger has not satisfied the adverse effect requirement of 5 U.S.C. § 552a(g)(1)(D) (1994). 5