Court Opinion

ID: 9949059
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-08 18:01:19.027077+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:26:35.145740
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                        MAR 8 2024
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

MARITIME DOCUMENTATION CENTER No. 22-55696
CORP., a Montana corporation,
                                  D.C. No.
             Plaintiff-Appellant, 5:21-cv-00489-JWH-SP

 v.
                                                MEMORANDUM*
UNITED STATES COAST GUARD,

                Defendant-Appellee.

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Central District of California
                   John W. Holcomb, District Judge, Presiding

                     Argued and Submitted October 19, 2023
                              Pasadena, California

Before: CLIFTON and SANCHEZ, Circuit Judges, and KORMAN,** District
Judge.

      Maritime Documentation Center Corp. (“Maritime”) appeals the district

court’s order granting summary judgment to the United States Coast Guard on

Maritime’s claim for violation of the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”). We

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
      **
             The Honorable Edward R. Korman, United States District Judge for
the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.
have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

      In April 2020, Maritime submitted a FOIA request seeking personally

identifiable information of owners of vessels documented with the Coast Guard.

This information was contained in a data file called the Merchant Vessels of the

United States (“MVUS”). In June 2020, the Coast Guard partially denied this

request and released an Excel spreadsheet containing MVUS vessel information

with the names and addresses of individual vessel owners redacted. To justify its

redactions, the Coast Guard cited Exemption 6 to FOIA, 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6), the

personal privacy exemption.1 Maritime filed a complaint for declaratory and

injunctive relief, alleging that the Coast Guard’s redactions violated FOIA and that

Exemption 6 does not apply. The district court disagreed and granted summary

judgment to the Coast Guard on Maritime’s FOIA claim. This appeal followed.

      We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, Animal

Legal Def. Fund v. U.S. Food & Drug Admin., 836 F.3d 987, 990 (9th Cir. 2016)

(en banc) (per curiam), and its evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion, Sandoval

v. Cnty. of San Diego, 985 F.3d 657, 665 (9th Cir. 2021).

      1.     The district court correctly found that Exemption 6 permitted the

1
  The Coast Guard also cited Exemption 7(C) to FOIA, which applies to certain
law enforcement records the disclosure of which would “constitute an unwarranted
invasion of personal privacy.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(C). Like the district court, we
do not reach whether Exemption 7(C) applies in this case because we hold that
Exemption 6 permitted the Coast Guard’s redactions.

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Coast Guard to withhold the names and addresses of individual vessel owners.

Exemption 6 permits agencies to withhold “personnel and medical files and similar

files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of

personal privacy.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6).

       The term “similar files” is interpreted broadly and includes “[g]overnment

records containing information that applies to particular individuals.” Van Bourg,

Allen, Weinberg & Roger v. NLRB, 728 F.2d 1270, 1273 (9th Cir. 1984). The

information Maritime seeks easily satisfies this threshold test. See Forest Serv.

Emps. for Env’t Ethics v. U.S. Forest Serv., 524 F.3d 1021, 1024 (9th Cir. 2008)

(list of federal employees’ “names and home addresses” satisfies test).

       To determine whether a disclosure would “constitute a clearly unwarranted

invasion of personal privacy,” the court first requires the agency to show that

“nontrivial or more than de minimis” personal privacy interests are at stake.

Cameranesi v. U.S. Dep’t of Def., 856 F.3d 626, 637 (9th Cir. 2017) (cleaned up).

If the agency so shows, the burden shifts to the requestor to “show that the public

interest sought to be advanced is a significant one and that the information [sought]

is likely to advance that interest.” Id. (alteration in original).

       Disclosing individual vessel owners’ names and addresses implicates

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“nontrivial” personal privacy interests.2 Such disclosure would identify those

owners and their addresses with particular vessels, exposing them to commercial

solicitations related to their vessels. This is similar to the privacy interest we

recognized in Minnis v. United States Department of Agriculture, 737 F.2d 784

(9th Cir. 1984), where we held that individual applicants for permits to travel the

Rogue River had “more than a minimal privacy interest” in their names and

addresses because disclosure would have revealed “their personal interests in water

sports and the out-of-doors,” subjecting them “to an unwanted barrage of mailings

and personal solicitations.” 737 F.2d at 787; see also Forest Serv. Emps., 524 F.3d

at 1026 (“We have previously construed [Exemption 6] to protect against the

harassment associated with unwanted commercial solicitations.”).3

      Vessel owners’ privacy interests are not diminished by the Coast Guard’s

policy prior to June 2017 of releasing personally identifiable information, or by its

2
  Disclosure would reveal individual vessel owners’ home addresses where such
addresses were used for registration purposes. The privacy of the home “is
accorded special consideration in our Constitution, laws, and traditions.” U.S.
Dep’t of Def. v. Fed. Labor Relations Auth., 510 U.S. 487, 501 (1994).
3
  Contrary to Maritime’s contention, our decision in Minnis is not irreconcilable
with United States Department of Defense v. Federal Labor Relations Authority,
510 U.S. 487 (1994). Although the Supreme Court in Federal Labor Relations
Authority instructed that “whether an invasion of privacy is warranted cannot turn
on the purposes for which the request for information is made,” 510 U.S. at 496
(emphasis in original) (citation omitted), Minnis’s holding that the disclosure at
issue implicated “more than a minimal privacy interest” is distinct from the inquiry
into whether the resulting invasion of privacy would be “unwarranted,” see Minnis,
737 F.2d at 786–87.

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inadvertent release of such information in May 2021. As Maritime’s counsel

conceded at oral argument, the list it seeks undoubtedly contains updated names

and addresses reflecting new registrations and transfers. Moreover, “FOIA does

not impose a duty on the government to provide a satisfactory explanation” when it

begins redacting personally identifiable information as part of a “change in its

policy.” Cameranesi, 856 F.3d at 645. The Coast Guard’s disclosure to select

entities such as Lloyds Register and EQUASIS also does not suggest that

individual owners have no “nontrivial” privacy interest in the dissemination of

their personally identifiable information to the general public. See U.S. Dep’t of

Just. v. Reps. Comm. For Freedom of Press, 489 U.S. 749, 764–65 (1989)

(agency’s dissemination to a limited “group or class of persons” was consistent

with “the dictionary definition of privacy”).

      Against this privacy interest, Maritime has shown no significant public

interest that would likely be advanced by disclosing individual vessel owners’

personally identifiable information. See Cameranesi, 856 F.3d at 637. “[T]he only

relevant public interest in the FOIA balancing analysis is the extent to which

disclosure of the information sought would she[d] light on an agency’s

performance of its statutory duties or otherwise let citizens know what their

government is up to.” Id. at 639–40 (emphasis and second alteration in original).

Disclosing individual vessel owners’ names and addresses would not directly

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reveal anything about the Coast Guard’s “performance of its statutory duties” and

Maritime’s argument that ongoing FOIA requests followed by updated disclosures

of personally identifiable information would reveal whether the Coast Guard is

“timely” performing its duties or maintaining “accurate” vessel registration

information is attenuated at best.

      2.     The district court did not commit reversible error in declining to take

judicial notice of various records submitted by Maritime. Assuming arguendo the

records were judicially noticeable, Maritime was not prejudiced. See Blas v.

Talabera, 318 F.2d 617, 619 (9th Cir. 1963). First, the Coast Guard already

conceded that it discloses vessel owners’ personally identifiable information to

select entities and, in the past, had disclosed such information publicly. Second, the

report by the Government Accountability Office, which identified issues with

processing delays and a lack of performance measures to assess accuracy for vessel

documentation, does not support Maritime’s argument that disclosing vessel

owners’ personally identifiable information would advance the public’s interest in

monitoring either the Coast Guard’s timeliness or its accuracy.

      3.     Nor was the district court’s reliance on the Declaration of Captain

Jason Neubauer improper. Captain Neubauer adequately established his personal

knowledge for purposes of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c)(4) by virtue of

his position as the director of the office responsible for processing Maritime’s

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FOIA request and his review of pertinent records pursuant to his investigation. See

Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(4); In re Kaypro, 218 F.3d 1070, 1075 (9th Cir. 2000)

(“Personal knowledge may be inferred from a declarant’s position.”).

AFFIRMED.

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