Tyler v. U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons ( 2018 )

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
_________________________________
)
LAWRENCE T. TYLER, )
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Plaintiff, )
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v. ) Civil Action No. 17-1107 (EGS)
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U.S. FEDERAL BUREAU )
OF PRISONS et al., )
)
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Defendants. )
_________________________________ )
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Plaintiff is a federal prisoner appearing pro se. In the Complaint styled as brought under
the Privacy Act, the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), and the Administrative Procedure
Act (“APA”), plaintiff challenges the accuracy of information contained in his presentence
investigation report (“PSI”) and the alleged adverse effect it is having on his custody in Folkston,
Georgia. Plaintiff has sued the U.S. Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”), BOP contractor GEO Group,
Inc., which operates the facility where plaintiff is incarcerated, and several GEO employees in
their official capacities.
Pending are the separate motions of BOP and the GEO defendants to dismiss. Each
motion seeks dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(3) for improper venue and
Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Also pending is
plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment as to liability. The Court finds that this venue is
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proper but that plaintiff has stated no viable claim. 1 Therefore, the defendants’ motions will be
granted, plaintiff’s motion will be denied, and this case will be dismissed for the reasons
explained more fully below.
I. BACKGROUND
A jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas convicted plaintiff of
one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, seven counts of health care fraud, and one
count of money laundering. United States v. Tyler, 626 Fed. App’x 511, 512 (5th Cir. 2015) (per
curiam). As a result, plaintiff is serving a 72-month prison sentence. In addition, plaintiff must
serve three years of supervised release and pay restitution. Id.
Plaintiff has expended an inordinate amount of ink on irrelevant facts pertaining to his
trial and convictions. See Compl. at 4-36. Relevant to this action are plaintiff’s allegations that
(1) his custody is based on “inaccurate” and/or “incomplete” information in the PSI with regard
to “loss amount” and his U.S. citizenship, and (2) defendants have taken no “reasonable steps” to
verify the challenged information. Id. at 37-38. As a result, plaintiff alleges, he has suffered
“adverse determination[s] . . . such as longer detention, and a restitution award of
$1,238,823.08.” 2 Id. at 37.
II. LEGAL STANDARD
A defendant may move to dismiss a complaint for failure to state a claim upon which
relief can be granted. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). In considering such a motion, the “complaint is
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The venue provisions of both the Privacy Act and the FOIA identify the federal district court
in the District of Columbia as a proper venue for such claims. See 5 U.S.C. § 552a(g)(5) (Privacy
Act); 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B) (FOIA).
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To the extent that plaintiff is challenging part of his sentence, this district court is not a
reviewing court and thus lacks jurisdiction over such matters. Plaintiff’s recourse with regard to
the amount of restitution ordered lies, if at all, in the sentencing court. See 28 U.S.C. § 2255
(“Federal custody; remedies on motion attacking sentence”).
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construed liberally in the plaintiff[’s] favor, and [the Court] grant[s] plaintiff[ ] the benefit of all
inferences that can be derived from the facts alleged.” Kowal v. MCI Commc'ns Corp., 16 F.3d
1271, 1276 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (citation omitted). “However, the [C]ourt need not accept
inferences drawn by [the] plaintiff[ ] if such inferences are unsupported by the facts set out in the
complaint.” Id. Nor must the Court accept “a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation,”
nor “naked assertions devoid of further factual enhancement.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662,
678 (2009) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Aktieselskabet AF 21. November 2001 v.
Fame Jeans Inc., 525 F.3d 8, 17 n.4 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (noting that the D.C. Circuit has “never
accepted legal conclusions cast in the form of factual allegations” (internal quotation marks
omitted)). Ordinarily on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the Court considers only “the facts alleged in
the complaint, documents attached as exhibits or incorporated by reference in the complaint, and
matters about which the Court may take judicial notice.” Gustave-Schmidt v. Chao, 226 F. Supp.
2d 191, 196 (D.D.C. 2002) (citing EEOC v. St. Francis Xavier Parochial Sch., 117 F.3d 621,
624-25 (D.C. Cir. 1997)).
“To survive a [Rule 12(b)(6)] motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient
factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ ” Iqbal,
556 U.S. at 678 (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). A claim is
facially plausible when the pleaded factual content “allows the court to draw the reasonable
inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. at 678. Although a pro se
complaint “must be held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers,”
Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (per curiam) (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted), it too “must plead ‘factual matter’ that permits the court to infer ‘more than the mere
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possibility of misconduct,’ ” Atherton v. District of Columbia Office of the Mayor, 567 F.3d 672,
681-82 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679).
III. DISCUSSION
Because plaintiff’s claims are predicated on the alleged incorrectness of his PSI contained
in his prison file, judicial review is authorized solely under the Privacy Act. See Griffin v.
Ashcroft, No. 02-5399, 2003 WL 22097940, at *2 (D.C. Cir. Sept. 3, 2003) (affirming “the
district court’s dismissal of appellant’s constitutional claims based on the BOP’s alleged
maintenance and use of inaccurate information because such claims are encompassed within the
Privacy Act’s comprehensive remedial scheme”) (citing Chung v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 333 F.3d
273, 274 (D.C. Cir. 2003)). For this reason, the Court hereby dismisses (1) any APA claim,
since “a plaintiff cannot bring an APA claim to obtain relief for an alleged Privacy Act
violation,” Westcott v. McHugh, 39 F. Supp. 3d 21, 33 (D.D.C. 2014), and (2) the claims against
the named individual defendants and GEO Group, Inc., since “the Privacy Act does not apply to
government contractors,” Metro. Life Ins. Co. v. Blyther, 964 F. Supp. 2d 61, 71 (D.D.C. 2013)
(citing cases). See Abdelfattah v. U.S. Dep't of Homeland Sec., 787 F.3d 524, 533 n.4 (D.C. Cir.
2015) (“[T]he Privacy Act creates a cause of action against only federal government agencies
and not private corporations or individual officials.”) (citations omitted), and Martinez v. Bureau
of Prisons, 444 F.3d 620, 624 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (concluding that “the district court properly
dismissed the named individual defendants because no cause of action exists that would entitle
appellant to relief from them under the Privacy Act or FOIA”) (citations omitted)).
In addition, plaintiff has mentioned the FOIA but has not alleged that BOP withheld
agency records to state a claim under FOIA. See Banks v. Lappin, 539 F. Supp. 2d 228, 235
(D.D.C. 2008) (“Federal jurisdiction over a FOIA claim is dependent upon a showing that an
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agency improperly withheld agency records.”) (citing Kissinger v. Reporters Comm. for
Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. 136, 150 (1980)). Accordingly, any FOIA claim is dismissed as
well.
Subsection (e)(5) of the Privacy Act requires that an agency:
maintain all records which are used by the agency in making any
determination about any individual with such accuracy, relevance, timeliness,
and completeness as to assure fairness to the individual in the determination.
5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(5). As a general rule, an individual may access an agency’s records or
information in a system of records pertaining to him and request that such records be amended.
See 5 U.S.C. § 552a(d). He may file a civil action against an agency that refuses to amend its
records upon request or fails to maintain its records with the requisite level of accuracy and
completeness. See 5 U.S.C. § 552a(g); Sellers v. Bureau of Prisons, 959 F.2d 307, 310 (D.C.
Cir. 1992) (stating that subsection (g) provides civil remedies for violations of subsection (e)(5)).
In a civil suit filed under subsection (g)(1)(C), if the Court determines that the agency’s actions
were willful or intentional, the Court may award actual damages sustained by the individual as a
result of the agency’s failure to maintain its records with the requisite level of accuracy, and
further may award costs of the action and attorney fees. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(g)(4).
Notwithstanding the relief ostensibly available under the Privacy Act, an agency’s
Director may promulgate regulations to exempt any system of records within the agency from
any part of the Privacy Act, except subsections (b), (c)(1) and (2), (e)(4)(A) through (F), (e)(6),
(7), (9), (10), and (11), and (i), if the system of records is:
maintained by an agency or component thereof which performs as its
principal function any activity pertaining to the enforcement of criminal laws,
including . . . correctional, probation, pardon, or parole authorities, and which
consists of . . . reports identifiable to an individual compiled at any stage of
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the process of enforcement of the criminal laws from arrest or indictment
through release from supervision.
5 U.S.C. § 552a(j)(2). It is established that BOP’s Inmate Central Records System, which
contains, among other things, an inmate’s PSI, has been properly exempted from the Privacy
Act’s amendment and maintenance requirements, and that “effectively deprive[s] a litigant of a
remedy for any harm caused by the BOP’s substandard recordkeeping.” Lee v. Bureau of
Prisons, 751 F. Supp. 2d 101, 103-04 (D.D.C. 2010) (citing 28 C.F.R. § 16.97(a)(4) and
§ 16.97(j); Skinner v. Dep’t of Justice, 584 F.3d 1093, 1098 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (affirming
dismissal of a claim for amendment of records maintained in the Inmate Central Records
System); Martinez v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 444 F.3d 620, 624 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (per curiam)
(affirming dismissal of claims against the BOP because it had exempted the Inmate Central
Records system from the accuracy provision of the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(5); White v.
U.S. Probation Office, 148 F.3d 1124, 1125 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (per curiam) (concluding that the
Privacy Act’s amendment provision does not cover amendment of a PSI); Risley v. Hawk, 108
F.3d 1396, 1397 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (per curiam) (denying injunctive relief on the ground that
regulations exempt BOP records, including allegedly false medical records, from amendment
provision of Privacy Act); Sellers v. Bureau of Prisons, 959 F.2d at 309 (upholding dismissal of
claim for amendment of prisoner’s PSI under § 552(d)); see also Harrison v. Fed. Bureau of
Prisons, 248 F. Supp. 3d 172, 181 (D.D.C. 2017) (holding “as a matter of law” that because the
BOP’s Inmate Central Records System “appears to house all inmate records related to
sentencing, [public safety factors], housing, custody classification, security designations, and the
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like,” subsections (d)(1), (e)(5), and (f) of the Privacy Act “afford inmates and former inmates no
cause of action regarding such records”) (citations omitted)). 3
IV. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the Court concludes that plaintiff has stated no claim for relief
under the Privacy Act, the FOIA, or the APA. As a result, the defendants’ motions to dismiss
under Rule 12(b)(6) are granted and plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment is denied as
moot. A separate order accompanies this Memorandum Opinion.
SIGNED: EMMET G. SULLIVAN
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
DATE: May 31, 2018
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Regardless of the record system’s exemption, BOP has fulfilled any plausible duty under the
Privacy Act by verifying the accuracy of the restitution amount via the sentencing order and the
validity of the immigration detainer lodged by the Department of Homeland Security. See Decl.
of Wendi Sorrell ¶¶ 6-9 [Dkt. # 23-2]. Cf. Martinez, 444 F.3d at 624 (noting with approval that
BOP had “contacted the [U.S. Parole Commission] and the [U.S. Probation Office] and was
advised that [its] records regarding appellant were accurate”); but see Earle v. Holder, 815 F. Supp.
2d 176, 183 (D.D.C. 2011), aff'd, No. 11-5280, 2012 WL 1450574 (D.C. Cir. Apr. 20, 2012)
(questioning the continuing vitality of the “Sellers directive to verify easily verifiable information
in BOP records, . . . as it was decided before [BOP] exempted the relevant system of records from
the accuracy provision”) (citing Sellers, 959 F.2d at 311-12) (other citations and internal quotation
marks omitted)). Therefore, plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment “as to the liability of
defendants” for “failing to take reasonable steps to verify the inaccurate information,” Mot. for
Partial Summ. J. at 1 [Dkt. # 12], is moot.
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