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FL: Federal jury finds wrongdoing, but no emotional distress, in records snooping case

Posted on November 24, 2015 by Dissent

Well, this is different. A jury actually found for a plaintiff who alleged snooping in her driver’s records – and awarded her damages that included penalizing the Marion County Sheriff’s Office for enabling the snooping.  Nicki Gorny reports:

An Ocala woman did not suffer emotional distress when a former Marion County Sheriff’s Office deputy snooped on her driving record, an eight-person jury decided Thursday morning, but she is entitled to $10,100 in damages.

After approximately five hours of deliberation split between two days, the jury found that former deputy Clayton Thomas twice violated the federal Drivers Privacy Protection Act by pulling up Kellean Truesdell’s photograph on the Driver and Vehicle Information Database. The panel awarded her punitive and statutory damages:

• $100 in punitive damages against Thomas, punishing him for snooping

• $5,000 in punitive damages against MCSO, punishing the agency for enabling Thomas’ snooping through a “custom, policy or practice”

• $5,000 in statutory damages against Thomas and MCSO together, recognizing two violations of the federal statute in regard to Truesdell

So how did they manage to successfully hold the sheriff’s office responsible? It seems that Thomas had been caught misusing the DAVID database in 2012, resulting in a suspension of his access for two months.  But:

When this suspension was lifted, Parmer emphasized, Thomas continued his DAVID searches with no oversight or repercussions.

The current sheriff is reportedly more proactive in auditing usage.

Read more on Ocala.com.

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