Hud

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

PRUDENTIAL LOCATIONS LLC, a No. 09-16995 Hawaii limited liability company, Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. 1:09-cv-00128- v. SOM-KSC

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND

URBAN DEVELOPMENT, OPINION

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Hawai’i Susan Oki Mollway, Chief District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted February 15, 2011—Honolulu, Hawaii Reargued and Resubmitted March 9, 2012—Pasadena, California

Filed October 9, 2013

Before: A. Wallace Tashima, William A. Fletcher, and Marsha S. Berzon, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam Opinion; Dissent by Judge Berzon SUMMARY*

Freedom of Information Act

The panel affirmed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and held that Exemption 6 of the Freedom of Information Act justified the agency’s decision to redact identifying information.

Plaintiff filed a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request with HUD, asking it to disclose the names of the individuals who had…

dissenting:

The Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) establishes a strong default rule: Government must disclose information in its possession unless it invokes, at its discretion, one of nine narrow exemptions. See, e.g., U.S. Dep’t of Def. v. FLRA, 510 U.S. 487, 494 , 114 S.Ct. 1006 , 127 L.Ed.2d 325 (1994) (citing U.S. Dep’t of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 360-61 , 96 S.Ct. 1592 , 48 L.Ed.2d 11 (1976)); see also 5 U.S.C. § 552 (b)(l)-(9) (enumerating exemptions). Here, HUD has invoked only Exemption 6, which authorizes withholding “personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” 5 U.S.C. § 552 (b)(6). Applying that exemption requires balancing the personal privacy interests it protects “against the public interest in government openness that would be served by disclosure.” Lahr v. Nat’l Transp. Safety Bd., 569 F.3d 964, 973 (9th Cir.2009).

The majority identifies a personal privacy interest which may not exist, and then weighs the public interest in disclosure too lightly. And it does both in the name of reducing the government’s burden in complying 'with the law, a concern with no…

The quéstion in this case is whether the identity of a person complaining to a federal agency about a violation of law is protected from disclosure under Exemption 6 of the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”). Plaintiff Prudential Locations (“Prudential”) filed a FOIA request with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”), asking it to disclose the names of the individuals who had complained to HUD that Prudential had violated the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (“RESPA”). (For convenience, we will use the plural even though it is possible that the two complaints were written by the same person.) HUD invoked Exemption 6 to justify redacting the documents to conceal the authors’ identities. Exemption 6 covers “personnel and medical files and similar files the disclo *427 sure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” 5 U.S.C. § 552 (b)(6). The district court held that Exemption 6 justifies the agency’s decision to redact identifying information. Prudential Locations LLC v. U.S. Dep’t of Housing & Urban Dev., 646 F.Supp.2d 1221 (D.Hawai’i 2009). We affirm.

A. Background

HUD is the agency responsible for…