Orduno v. Pietrzak, 0:14-cv-01393

Background

Plaintiff Samantha Orduno, former Dayton City Administrator, sued Dayton Police Chief Richard Pietrzak and the City under the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) alleging Pietrzak unlawfully accessed her DVS records and that the City failed to prevent/monitor such accesses. Pietrzak admitted liability for six accesses occurring within the statute of limitations; other earlier accesses were time-barred or disputed.
A third-party investigator (Bankes) obtained DVS logs showing Pietrzak accessed Orduno’s record multiple times and had numerous other DVS queries for various persons; the court limited admissibility of Bankes’s broader findings to relevance for Orduno’s own accesses.
The Court dismissed Orduno’s class claim and the City’s direct-liability DPPA claim pretrial; liability at trial concerned damages for Pietrzak’s admitted violations and possible vicarious liability of the City.
A jury awarded $0 in actual damages and $85,000 in punitive damages against Pietrzak; judgment was entered May 26, 2017.
Post-trial motions: Orduno sought amendment of judgment (to add DPPA statutory/liquidated damages), a new trial, and attorneys’ fees and costs; the City moved for judgment as a matter of law and to strike certain filings as untimely.
Court rulings: motions to strike denied (judgment entry date controlled timeliness); City’s Rule 50(b) motion denied; Orduno’s motion to amend judgment granted to add $15,000 liquidated damages ($2,500 × 6); new trial denied; fees and costs awarded in part (fees reduced for overstaffing/limited success; disallowed expert costs).

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Timeliness of post-judgment motions	Motions timely because judgment entry date supports filing within rule periods	Motions untimely (filed one day late)	Motions timely; docket shows judgment entered 5/26/2017; Motion to Strike denied
Vicarious liability under the DPPA	City can be held vicariously liable for Pietrzak’s unlawful accesses	DPPA does not impose vicarious liability on municipalities or here Pietrzak acted outside scope	Vicarious liability may apply; City liable under aided-in-agency/apparent authority theory; Rule 50(b) denied
Whether a new trial is warranted for evidentiary/instructional errors	Trial errors (exclusion of time-barred/third-party accesses, omission of City from verdict form, no statutory-damages instruction) prejudiced verdict	Excluded evidence was irrelevant/prejudicial; City properly omitted from direct-liability questions; statutory liquidated damages are post-judgment issue	New trial denied; exclusions and instruction choices were not prejudicial
Liquidated damages & attorneys’ fees/costs	Entitled to statutory liquidated damages per violation and reasonable fees/costs incurred	Liquidated damages require proof of actual damages; fees/costs excessive and some costs (experts) unrecoverable	Court awards $15,000 in liquidated damages ($2,500×6); attorneys’ fees reduced by 60% for overstaffing/limited success; expert forensic fees disallowed; total fees + costs awarded = $155,377.77

Key Cases Cited

Hydrolevel Corp. v. American Soc’y of Mechanical Engineers, 456 U.S. 556 (application of apparent-authority/vicarious liability in statutory context)
Meyer v. Holley, 537 U.S. 280 (Congress drafts statutes against background of ordinary tort vicarious-liability rules)
Tichich v. City of Bloomington, 835 F.3d 856 (Eighth Circuit rule treating close-in-time sequential database accesses as a single obtainment)
Pichler v. UNITE, 542 F.3d 380 (third circuit: liquidated damages under DPPA are a statutory floor not contingent on proving actual damages)
Kehoe v. Fidelity Federal Bank & Trust, 421 F.3d 1209 (eleventh circuit: similar holding on liquidated damages under DPPA)
Crawford Fitting Co. v. J.T. Gibbons, Inc., 482 U.S. 437 (limits on taxing expert witness fees absent statutory authorization)