United States District Court, District of Columbia
WILLIAM E. POWELL, Plaintiff,
v.
SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, Defendant.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
JAMES
E. BOASBERG UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.
Pro
se Plaintiff William E. Powell is on a mission to
uncover financial information related to his late father and
grandfather's trusts, estates, and businesses. He also
seeks information about himself. Powell is no stranger to
this Court; indeed, he has been employing the Freedom of
Information Act to obtain these records for years.
See Nos. 16-1682, 17-278, 17-2396, 17-2435, 18-453,
18-847, 18-2675. In the current action, he seeks documents
from the Social Security Administration. After receiving his
request, SSA conducted a search and released to him certain
material. When Powell challenged such response by filing this
suit, the agency conducted another search and disclosed
additional items. Having done so, it now moves to dismiss or,
in the alternative, for summary judgment. Because Defendant
has fully explained its search and sufficiently demonstrated
that it has released all relevant documents, the Court will
grant the Motion.
I.
Background
The
parties agree that on October 6, 2018, Powell submitted a
Privacy Act request via SSA's FOIA Public Liaison email
address. See ECF No. 1 (Complaint); ECF No. 12
(Motion to Dismiss), Exh. D (Declaration of Monica Chyn),
¶ 3. He requested the following information regarding
his account: “Account Data, Payment Data and
Beneficiary Data[, ] . . . summary of yearly earnings and
quarters of coverage, self-employment, certificate of
coverage, and establishing a foreign coverage exemption under
a Social Security Agreement.” MTD, Exh. A (Pl. Req.) at
1-2. He asked for this information under his Social Security
Number or any cross-referenced Individual Taxpayer
Identification Number (ITIN) for the years 1985 through 2017.
Id. Powell sought a search of the following systems:
“Earning Record and Self-Employment income System,
Social Security Administration, Office of System, Master
Files of Social Security Number (SSN) Holders and SSN
Application, Social Security Administration (SSA), Master
Beneficiary Record Social Security Administration, Deputy
Commissioner for System, Office of Retirement and Survivors
insurance system (ORSIS).” Id. at 7. While
this request is difficult to parse, SSA replied to him a few
days later. On October 10, 2018, a member of the Office of
Privacy and Disclosure (OPD) at the Office of the General
Counsel at SSA emailed Powell, confirming his request and
giving him access to a tracking number. See Chyn
Decl., ¶ 4.
Earnings
information, however, is properly processed via the Division
of Earnings and Business Services (DEBS). Id.,
¶ 5. For this reason, eight days later OPD emailed
Powell a letter that contained instructions about how he
could file a DEBS request. Id. OPD admits that this
email “inadvertently” failed to acknowledge his
non-earnings requests. Id. In any event, DEBS indeed
released a report of Powell's earnings for the years
1985-2017, which comprised earnings found in SSA's
Earnings Recording and Self-Employment Income System,
including any self-employment income. Id., ¶ 7.
After
Powell filed suit, SSA conducted an additional search for the
non-earnings records he had requested, including records of
account, payment, and beneficiary data, quarters of coverage,
etc. Id., ¶ 8. It did not find these
non-earnings records. Id., ¶¶ 10-11. On
March 15, 2019, OPD mailed him a letter explaining that the
search for his non-earning records had been unsuccessful.
Id. This mailing also included a copy of his
Numident (a file of information included in any applications
he made for a Social Security card) and another copy of the
documents Powell had already received from DEBS -
i.e., the summary and detailed earnings report.
SSA
avers in its affidavit that when it sent him the March 15
letter, it had searched all “systems or
locations” with “a reasonable likelihood of
containing information responsive” to his request, and
had mailed him all documents that were located and responsive
to his request. Id., ¶¶ 9-11. Having so
testified, SSA now moves for dismissal, arguing that the
issue is moot, as it has released all relevant documents. In
the alternative, SSA asks for summary judgment.
II.
Legal Standard
The
Court must consider the legal standards for both a motion to
dismiss and a motion for summary judgment. Rule 12(b)(1)
governs a motion to dismiss for mootness, because when an
issue is moot, the court lacks jurisdiction. See Indian
River Cty. v. Rogoff, 254 F.Supp.3d 15, 18 (D.D.C.
2017). A court has an “affirmative obligation to ensure
that it is acting within the scope of its jurisdictional
authority.” Grand Lodge of Fraternal Order of
Police v. Ashcroft, 185 F.Supp.2d 9, 13 (D.D.C. 2001).
In order for federal courts to have jurisdiction over an
issue, the Constitution requires the existence of
“actual and concrete disputes, the resolutions of which
have direct consequences on the parties involved.”
Genesis Healthcare Corp. v. Symczyk, 569 U.S. 66, 71
(2013). Without such a dispute, the case must be dismissed as
moot. Id. at 72. As a result, a mootness inquiry
must precede the merits in the court's analysis.
Summary
judgment may be granted if “the movant shows that there
is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant
is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”
Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a). A genuine issue of material fact is one
that would change the outcome of the litigation. See
Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248
(1986) (“Only disputes over facts that might affect the
outcome of the suit under the governing law will properly
preclude the entry of summary judgment.”). In the event
of conflicting evidence on a material issue, the Court is to
construe the evidence in the light most favorable to the
non-moving party. See Sample v. Bureau of Prisons,
466 F.3d 1086, 1087 (D.C. Cir. 2006).
III.
Analysis
While
Powell technically submitted his request under the Privacy
Act, not FOIA, this has little bearing on the Court's
analysis. Both Acts require agencies to conduct a reasonable
search and create a private cause of action when an agency
does not comply with a valid request for records. See
Hillier v. CIA, 2018 WL 4354947, at *6 (D.D.C. Sept. 12,
2018). Although the exemptions to the Acts differ, courts in
this circuit apply the same standards to assess the adequacy
of a search under either statute. Id.; Chambers
v. U.S. Dep't of Interior, 568 F.3d 998, 1003 (D.C.
Cir. 2009).
In this
case, Powell alleges that SSA has improperly handled his
request. First, he claims that it is withholding documents he
sought. He states that SSA provided him with only a summary
self-employment earnings report, not a detailed (or itemized)
report. See ECF No. 15 (Opp. to MTD) at 4 n.2. His
claims are somewhat unclear, but he also possibly contends
that SSA should have delivered to him the results of a search
of the Master Earnings File (MEF). Id. at 5 n.3.
Next, he challenges the adequacy of the search itself. Here,
he maintains that SSA did not provide enough information
about the content and details of the search and that it did
not sufficiently search the MEF. Id. at 3-4. SSA has
filed a Motion to Dismiss for lack of subject-matter
jurisdiction or, alternatively, a Motion for Summary
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