Opinion ID: 155524
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Disclosure to Taylor's Staff Members

Text: 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.