## Facts

- A private citizen asked the McMinn County Sheriff’s Department for Jackie Ray Cline’s arrest and criminal history information.
- Cline alleged Sheriff George W. Rogers searched state and local records and requested an NCIC search.
- Cline alleged Rogers disclosed the resulting criminal history information to the private citizen without authorization.
- Cline sued Rogers (individually and in his official capacity) and McMinn County for:
  - damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 based on an asserted constitutional privacy right in criminal history information;
  - an implied private right of action (and/or § 1983-enforceable right) under 42 U.S.C. § 3789g; and
  - state-law and federal common-law privacy violations.
- Cline alleged the County maintained customs and deficient controls, training, and oversight that allowed misuse of criminal records.

## Issues

1. Whether disclosure of arrest and criminal history information to a private citizen violates a constitutionally protected privacy interest actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
2. Whether 42 U.S.C. § 3789g creates (a) an implied private right of action or (b) a federal right enforceable through § 1983 for improper dissemination of criminal history information.
3. Whether dismissal of the remaining state-law and purported federal common-law privacy claims was proper after the federal claims failed.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit affirmed dismissal with prejudice of all claims.
- The court held there is no federal constitutional right to privacy in arrest and conviction information because it is a matter of public record; the § 1983 claim failed for lack of a violated federal right.
- The court held 42 U.S.C. § 3789g does not create an implied private cause of action and does not confer a right enforceable under § 1983.
- The court found no reversible error in dismissing the remaining privacy theories once the federal claims were dismissed.

## Legal Principles

- Section 1983 requires deprivation of a federal right; a claimed violation of federal law or agency-directed duties, without a rights-conferring statute or constitutional violation, is insufficient.
- Arrest and conviction information, as public-record information, does not fall within constitutional informational privacy protected by the Fourteenth Amendment in this context.
- A statute creates an implied private right of action only when Congress shows intent to confer an individual, judicially enforceable remedy; regulatory provisions aimed at agency conduct do not, without clear rights-creating language.
- When federal claims are dismissed at the pleading stage, dismissal of pendent state-law claims may follow; federal common law does not independently supply a general privacy cause of action for dissemination of criminal history information.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit held that disclosure of a person’s criminal history information, without more, does not violate a constitutionally protected privacy right actionable under § 1983, and that 42 U.S.C. § 3789g provides neither an implied private cause of action nor a right enforceable through § 1983; the dismissal of all claims was affirmed.


Cline v. Rogers, 87 F.3d 176 (6th Cir. 1996)