 |
| Jonathan Shub |
Sometimes, a picture is worth $1,000.
A lawyer representing a New Jersey man in a federal class action suit against Bucks County and its prison believes a mugshot could be worth nearly $700 million.
A U.S. District Court judge gets the final say on whether Daryoush Taha, 46, of Sicklerville, and possibly others, are awarded as little as $1,000 or as much as $680 million in what one Temple University law professor called a precedent-setting class action suit.
“It’s a very novel case,” said attorney Jonathan Shub, who is representing Taha, the lead plaintiff in the suit. “This statute has never been tested.”
Taha sued the county four years ago, alleging it violated his civil rights when it included on its online inmate lookup tool his mugshot and other information from a 1998 arrest in Bensalem on charges of harassment, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
Taha was accepted into a one-year trial diversion probation program for non-violent first offenders, which he completed, and his arrest information was ordered expunged in January 2000.
Bucks County created its electronic inmate lookup search tool in January 2011 and later that year, Taha claims he learned his arrest information and mugshot were still listed on the site, according to the suit. The county removed all inmate mugshots and most arrest information from the website in June 2013, as a result of Taha’s lawsuit.
Last year a U.S. District Court judge found that the county violated the Pennsylvania Criminal History Record Information Act, known as CHRIA, when it disseminated Taha’s arrest information and mug shot. The law prohibits the dissemination of a person’s criminal history record to anyone outside law enforcement when the person hadn’t been convicted of the crime.
The judge also granted Taha’s motion to certify his case as a class action suit, which opened the possibility of 68,000 class members -- other individuals whose criminal history record information was made available on the county prison’s inmate look up tool before it was revamped, Shub said.
The county appealed the class action certification to the Third Circuit Court, which in August issued a decision upholding the class action status. As a class action suit, any punitive damage award would be divided among all the members of the class action and its attorneys.
Philadelphia attorney Burt Rublin, who is representing the county, declined to comment, saying county officials did not authorize him to speak about the case.
If the court decides the county “willfully” violated the statute, the punitive award is $1,000 to $10,000 per violation, under the law.
“We think we can prove willfulness and each posting of another name is a willful violation,” Shub added. “Bucks County faces a serious predicament.”
But Ken Jacobsen, a Temple University law professor, has doubts. He has specialized in class action suits for 30 years.
While the court found Bucks County violated CHRIA -- which entitles Taha and the class members to punitive damages -- it did not award Taha actual damages because he did not contend that he suffered any economic losses as a result of his arrest information being posted online. If the case goes to trial, it’s possible a jury could find Taha isn’t entitled to punitive damages, which are typically seen as a secondary punishment to deter egregious conduct, Jacobsen said.
Another crucial factor will be how the court defines willful conduct, Jacobsen said: Is it simply the act of putting the arrest information online, or does there need to be evidence the county intended to humiliate and harm individuals when it put the information online?
Even if the court determines the county willfully violated the law, the bigger unknown is what the court determines is a violation.
Bucks County contends in court documents the posting of the 68,000 individuals constitutes a single violation, meaning the damage award would be between $1,000 and $10,000. Shub believes each individual posting is a violation, upping the potential damage award to $68 million to $680 million.
But since Taha couldn’t prove he suffered actual damages, it’s less likely that other members of the class can prove damages, too, Jacobsen said.
“Unless there is some statutory minimum without proof of harm, it’s going to be interesting to see how damages are proved for these 60,000 other people,” Jacobsen said. “It’s an interesting case.”
Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@calkins.com; Twitter: @JoCiavaglia
No comments:
Post a Comment