DISCLAIMER: The following unofficial case summaries are prepared by the clerk's office
as a courtesy to the reader. They are not part of the opinion of the court.
173437P.pdf 08/01/2019 Samantha Orduno v. Richard Pietrzak
U.S. Court of Appeals Case No: 17-3437
and No: 17-3486
U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota - Minneapolis
[PUBLISHED] [Colloton, Author, with Loken and Kelly, Circuit Judges]
Civil case - Driver's Privacy Protection Act. The circumstances of each
obtainment of information from the driver's license database would have
varied from class member to class member, and the district court did not
err in denying plaintiff's motion to certify a class; the district court
did not err in denying plaintiff's motion for reconsideration of that
order as plaintiff's new evidence did not alter the calculus on the
predominance issue; without evidence that city officials knowingly caused
Police Chief Pietrzak's impermissible actions, the City of Dayton cannot
be directly liable; and without proof of willful or reckless disregard of
the law, it follows the district court properly declined to allow punitive
damages against the City of Dayton; assuming, without deciding that a
plaintiff under DPPA may pursue a claim for municipal liability based on
the Monell standards that govern municipal liability under Section 1983,
the Chief's clandestine use of the database cannot fairly be said to
represent official policy; in City's cross-appeal, the judgment that the
City was vicariously liable for the Chief's violations of the DPPA is
affirmed as the district court correctly construed the civil action
provisions of the Act to incorporate background tort-related rules of
vicarious liability; no error in excluding evidence of other occasions
when the Chief obtained driver's license data as he had admitted liability
flowing from the six unlawful obtainments; no error in excluding evidence
of the City's response to the misconduct; reduction of plaintiff's request
for attorneys' fees award was not an abuse of the court's discretion; DPPA
does not explicitly authorize the taxation of expert witness fees as
costs, and the district court did not err in declining to award them.