Taha v. Bucks Cnty. Pa.

408 F.Supp.3d 628

Daryoush TAHA, Plaintiff,

v.BUCKS COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA, Bucks County Correctional Facility, Defendants.

CIVIL ACTION NO. 12-6867

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

Signed October 4, 2019

Alan E. Denenberg, Abramson & Denenberg, Jonathan Shub, Aarthi Manohar, Joseph C. Kohn, Kevin Laukaitis, Robert J. Larocca, Kohn Swift & Graf, P.C., Theodore M. Schaer, Zarwin Baum Devito Kaplan Schaer & Toddy, P.C., Philadelphia, PA, for Plaintiff.

Frank A. Chernak, Brett M. Waldron, Erin K. Clarke, Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads LLP, Burt M. Rublin, Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP, Philadelphia, PA, for Defendants.

OPINION

WENDY BEETLESTONE, District Judge

This certified class action arises from a decision by Defendants Bucks County Correctional Facility ("BCCF") and Bucks County in January 2011 to create an "Inmate Lookup Tool" ("the ILT"). Through the ILT, Defendants published information online about 66,799 individuals who had been held or incarcerated at various times over the course of decades at the BCCF. One of the individuals whose information was published, Plaintiff Daryoush Taha, filed this lawsuit on behalf of himself and all persons whose criminal history record information was made available on the ILT. He claimed that by publishing this information, Defendants violated Pennsylvania's Criminal History Record Information Act ("the CHRIA"), 18 Pa. C.S.A. § 9101 et seq . The Court granted Plaintiff partial summary judgment on liability. At trial, the only issue for the jury was whether Defendants willfully violated the CHRIA. See 18 Pa. C.S.A. § 9183(b)(2) ("Exemplary and punitive damages of not less than $1,000 nor more than $10,000 shall be imposed for any violation of this chapter ... found to be willful.") (emphasis added). At the close of evidence, the jury returned a verdict finding Defendants committed willful violations and awarded each class member $1,000 in punitive damages.

Prior to the case going to the jury, Defendants had twice moved pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50 for judgment as a matter of law, which the Court denied in both instances. Presently before the Court are Defendants' post-trial motions, including a renewed Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50, and a Motion for a New Trial pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59, or, in the alternative, a Motion for Remittitur. For the reasons that follow, Defendants' motions shall be denied.

I. FACTS

In September 1998, Plaintiff Taha was arrested by the Bensalem Police Department and transported to the BCCF, where he was charged with harassment, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest. His photo was taken. He was released the following day and, eventually, the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County ordered the Clerk of Courts of Bucks County, the Bucks County District Attorney, the district court, and the arresting agency to expunge Plaintiff's "arrest and other criminal records." See Taha v. Bucks County , 2016 WL 2345998, at *1 (E.D. Pa. May 4, 2016) (" Taha II ").

In 2008, Defendants created the ILT. In January 2011, Defendants launched the enhanced version of the ILT at issue in this case—an internet-accessible and searchable database that included information about "individuals who had been held or incarcerated at the BCCF from 1938 onward, a total of 66,799 people." Taha v. County of Bucks , 862 F.3d 292, 297 (3d Cir. 2017) (" Taha III "). Defendants made public through the internet information about the various class members, including name, race, weight, hair and eye color, arrest dates, arrest charges, and where available, the Federal Bureau of Investigation numbers ("FBI numbers") and state fingerprint identification numbers ("State ID numbers"). Id.¹

Harris Gubernick was the Director of the Bucks County Department of Corrections from 2002 until February 2011, which spans the time when the ILT was first created and when the enhanced version with additional information and photographs was introduced. At trial, Gubernick testified that he had little familiarity with the CHRIA beyond his training for certification and that he delegated "[t]he planning and the implementation" of the ILT to his subordinate, Clarke Fulton. Fulton was the Bucks County Department of Corrections' Captain of Administrative Affairs and was charged with overseeing software applications, assisting in litigation defense, and implementing the ILT. Despite Fulton's job description, he testified that Gubernick made the final decisions affecting the scope of the data posted on the ILT. Furthermore, he testified that he considered Gubernick more knowledgeable than he and that Gubernick "had a longer experience with the [CHRIA] law." Each man thus indicated the other was the decisionmaker regarding the ILT.

The authoritative guide to the CHRIA is the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Criminal History Record Information Act Handbook ("the Handbook"), which Defendants' witnesses sometimes referred to as "the Bible." The trial was infused with disputes as to what falls within the definition of "criminal history record information" for the purposes of the CHRIA. In their post-trial briefing, Defendants rely on Chart 9 of the Handbook, which describes Section 9122 of the CHRIA, to justify their reading of the term. But neither Fulton nor Gubernick consulted the Handbook while implementing the ILT. Fulton last read the Handbook during his training in 2003, eight years before the enhanced ILT was rolled out, and Gubernick never consulted the Handbook at all regarding compliance with the CHRIA. Gubernick also testified that he relied on Section 9104 of the CHRIA to support his conclusion that "criminal history record information" was information from a rap sheet and that charge information from court documents did not constitute criminal history record information. He acknowledged, however, that the term "rap sheet" does not appear in the statute, and he never sought clarification to confirm his understanding was correct.

The Commonwealth Law Enforcement Assistance Network ("CLEAN") is a database containing criminal record information, which is maintained by the state police for law enforcement purposes. Information on CLEAN, including FBI and State ID numbers that identify individuals, is classified as confidential, and Defendants knew that CLEAN information was meant to be confidential. Indeed, Fulton received Pennsylvania Justice Network ("JNET") training, which discussed the careless use of CLEAN information.

Fulton was the JNET Terminal Agency Coordinator ("JTAC"), and as such, he had access to the JTAC training manual. In 2008, Fulton inquired of a corporal with the Pennsylvania State Police as to whether posting the FBI and State ID numbers on the ILT was permissible, and was told that it "might be"—an answer which Fulton testified raised "some question in my mind." Fulton then consulted the JTAC training manual, which "did not speak ... directly in terms of dissemination" but did say that "information on the CLEAN network is considered confidential." He interpreted this to mean State ID and FBI numbers "were not protected" and made no further effort to investigate whether they could be disseminated.

Gubernick and Fulton met periodically with what they referred to as the Criminal Justice Advisory Board ("CJAB"), which included representatives from the district attorney, the public defender, county administration, and the Department of Corrections, among others, from Bucks County and other counties. There was no testimony presented regarding the CJAB's mission or whether it was within the group's purview to advise on the appropriate use of criminal history record information. Gubernick testified that no one at CJAB raised any flags about posting the data on the internet because the ILT issue "was never raised by anyone." At the January 2011 CJAB meeting, "no one mentioned" the privacy of the 67,000 people who interacted with the BCCF between 1938 and 2011.

Gubernick testified that prior to launching the Bucks County ILT, he analyzed the ILTs of other counties—Montgomery and "possibly" Fayette and Berks. He clicked on the home pages and was not able to click through to the rest of the counties' sites. He did not contact administrators in those counties. Defendants did not present testimony about whether they knew in 2011 whether other counties had received complaints or citations in connection with their ILTs.

Defendants never sought legal advice in the course of implementing the ILT. Fulton testified that during his 35-year career, he only sought legal advice from the County Solicitor once when he became aware of a discrepancy concerning the Department of Corrections' interpretation of a new Pennsylvania law concerning DNA blood samples. He never had a discussion with any lawyer regarding compliance with the CHRIA, and Gubernick never instructed him to obtain an opinion from the County Solicitor. Indeed, during the 2011 changes to the ILT, nobody sought guidance from the County Solicitor, the Pennsylvania Attorney General, or outside counsel.

Gubernick and Fulton both understood that privacy was an important part of the CHRIA. Gubernick testified that he had concerns about publicly posting confidential information. Fulton testified that he understood the need for the confidentiality of inmate records and understood that improper exposure of criminal history record information could ruin reputations. He appreciated the dangers of that information falling into the hands of third-party operators like Mugshots.com because his daughter's mugshot had been disseminated on the internet in that manner, and, on two occasions, she had asked him to pay to have her mugshot removed from the site, which he did.

Fulton testified that in 2011, he did not believe that "any of the information on [the] ILT could be considered CHRIA." Gubernick was asked whether, in 2011, he had "any thought in [his]...