UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA FREDERICK C. TROTTER, Plaintiff,' v. Case No. 1:19-cv-2008-RCL CENTER FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID SERVICES, Defendant. MEMORANDUM OPINION Plaintiff Frederick C. Trotter wanted information about millions of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Specifically, he asked CMS to disclose to him the domain portion of the email address associated with each healthcare provider registered with CMS, along with the provider's national provider identification number. 1 CMS denied his request, claiming that disclosing that information would invade the healthcare providers' privacy. So, Trotter sued under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), seeking to compel disclosure. Both parties seek summary judgment. Upon consideration of the motions (ECF Nos. 23, 25), briefs (ECF Nos. 23-2, 24-1, 25-1, 28, 29, 30), declarations (ECF Nos. 23-3, 24-2, 25-2, 28-2, 28 -3, 28-4), and all other pertinent papers of record, the Court will GRANT IN PART and DENY IN PART CMS's motion for summary judgment and GRANT IN PART and DENY IN PART Trotter's cross-motion for summary judgment. 1 An email address consists of a local-part, the "@" symbol, and a domain. For example, in the email address bevo@utexas.edu, "bevo" is the loca)-part and "utexas.edu" is the domain . I. BACKGROUND Federal regulations require virtually every healthcare provider to register with CMS and obtain a unique identification number, known as a "national provider identification" number. See generally 45 C.F.R. ch. 162. To obtain a national provider identification number, healthcare providers must register with a· database called the "national plan and provider and enumeration system." Schell Deel. 16 (ECF No. 28-4). When registering, healthcare providers must provide contact information-including an email address-for someone who can answer questions about the provider's application. Id. The email address need not be for the provider himself, but each email address must belong to a person, as opposed to an entity or corporation. Id. Trotter submitted a FQIA request for the email address associated with each national provider identification number. Gilmore Deel. 15. CMS identified 6,380,915 active providers. Id. at 1 15. After CMS informed Trotter it would withhold the full email addresses to protect the healthcare providers' privacy, id. at 17, Trotter amended his request to ask only for the domains associated with each provider, id. at 1 8. Again, CMS asserted the providers' privacy interests and refused to release the domains. Id. at 1 12. After exhausting his administrative remedies, id. at 1 13, Trotter filed this suit. II. LEGAL ST AND ARDS A. Freedom of Information Act FOIA establishes an enforceable right to federal agency records, unless one of the act's exemptions applies. 5 U.S.C. § 552(a), (b). Information is presumptively subject to disclosure. Dep 't ofState v. Ray, 502 U.S . -164, 173 (1991 ). An agency that withholds responsive documents, bears the burden of proving that one of FOIA's exemptions allows it to decline to disclose the information. DiBacco v. Dep 't of the Army, 926 F.3d 827, 834 (D.C. ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals