Federal Aviation Administration v. Cooper

[Medic Kane]

You can Google Federal Aviation Administration v. Cooper for more information . I can not find the AP/rueters article I first read, but here is the (not as good) USA Today.

 

The short version is the SSA blatantly violated federal medical privacy laws. The real crime is that if I did this as a Paramedic I would be looking at jail time, and would likely lose my home, just from the civil fines. No one in the FFA or the SSA has been charged. All done with a simple database search.

 

 

 

 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2011-11-30/supreme-court-privacy/51511744/1

 

 

 

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court took up an important privacy case Wednesday that traces to the mid-2000s when the

Social Security Administration and Department of Transportation exchanged confidential information related to thousands of private pilots.

 

 

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By Alex Brandon, AP

The Supreme Court is taking on a privacy case that dates back to the mid-2000s when the Social Security Administration and Department of Transportation exchanged confidential information on thousands of pilots.

 

 

 

Enlarge

 

 

By Alex Brandon, AP

The Supreme Court is taking on a privacy case that dates back to the mid-2000s when the Social Security Administration and Department of Transportation exchanged confidential information on thousands of pilots.

 

As part of the fraud investigation called "Operation Safe Pilot," Social Security officials revealed to aviation regulators that

San Francisco

pilot Stanmore Cooper was HIV-positive and had obtained disability benefits.

Cooper, who had not admitted his condition as he repeatedly renewed his pilot's license and medical certificate, said he was "devastated" by the breach of medical privacy. In the core dispute before the justices Wednesday, Cooper sued under a 1974 privacy law intended to prevent federal agencies from sharing or publicly leaking information.

He sought money damages for the anxiety, sleeplessness, loss of appetite and other physical ailments he developed when his medical information was shared among agencies without his consent. The government said his claim should be dismissed because the privacy law permits money only for financial losses, which Cooper did not assert, and not for emotional injuries.

A federal trial judge agreed, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit reversed and said the post-Watergate privacy statute's reference to "actual damages" covers proven mental or emotional distress arising from the intentional release of private information.

The high court on Wednesday heard the government's appeal in the case that could affect the ability of victims of government privacy breaches to obtain damages for mental and emotional distress. Lower courts are split on whether "actual damages" encompass such distress along with out-of-pocket financial losses.

Among the groups that have entered the case on the side of Cooper are the

National Whistleblower Center

and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. The latter organization, joined by other advocates for people with the virus, referred to "the intense fear that many people living with

HIV

have of unauthorized disclosure of their HIV status, because such disclosures often lead to intense stigma, discrimination and psychological injuries."

Cooper's situation is unusual because he deliberately declined to reveal he was HIV-positive on FAA forms — even after it no longer would have been disqualifying. Cooper, who started flying in 1964, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to two years of probation and fined $1,000. Yet his case could affect people in a multitude of situations, including those who might be subject to government leaks as retaliation.

Raymond Cardozo, Cooper's lawyer, told the justices the case could particularly impact "the whistle-blower who the government chooses to silence by embarrassing and humiliating them."

Cardozo argued that the government's narrow interpretation of the law's remedies "would mean that the very individuals Congress sought to protect in this act would have no remedy at all for the primary form of harm" that occurs when private information is released.

Assistant U.S. Solicitor General Eric Feigin countered that, based on the context and history of the legislation, the phrase "actual damages" covers only out-of-pocket expenses. "If Congress had intended to … allow uncapped emotional distress claims," it would have stated it clearly, he told the justices.

Feigin said Congress "would not have taken lightly" the possibility that the federal government would be exposed to more expansive damages for violating privacy interests.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was among the justices who appeared more sympathetic to Cooper's claim.

"The person who is subject to this embarrassment, this humiliation, doesn't have out-of-pocket costs, but is terribly distressed, nervous, anxious and all the rest," she told Feigin, adding that she believed Congress was focused on emotional distress when it passed the law.

Chief Justice John Roberts

was among those who appeared to agree with the government that if damages for emotional distress were allowed, Congress would have made that clear in the statute.

"What you are saying is this is a really big chunk of damages, because this is what the whole act is about," Roberts told Cardozo. "It seems to me that that argument suggests that there is some weight to the government's point that … you really do need a clearer" statement allowing such damages.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked whether Cardozo knew of any "runaway verdicts" based on awards of mental damages.

He said the highest he could recall involved a bank president who won a $100,000 award after a federal agency leaked false information to the news media that the man was "a money launderer."

Justice Anthony Kennedy asked Feigin whether a person who provided "documented trauma from psychosomatic illness with medical expenses and lost wages" would qualify for damages.

"If there are documented medical expenses that were out-of-pocket expenses," Feigin said, "then we think, even if they arise from emotional distress, they would be pecuniary harm and could be compensated under the Privacy Act."

A ruling in the case of

Federal Aviation Administration

v. Cooper

is likely by the end of June when the justices traditionally recess for the term.