U.S. District Court Judge Michael Davis handed out a hard lesson this week to attorney Vincent Moccio, a partner at the Minneapolis law firm of Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi. In response to Moccio filing an affidavit containing the birth dates and full social security numbers of 179 individuals, Judge Davis sanctioned Moccio $5,000, to be paid to the Second Harvest Heartland food bank. In addition — and likely a more significant sanction — Judge Davis ordered Moccio to provide credit reports and credit monitoring services to all of the affected persons, services that cost approximately $65.00 per person. If all 179 claimants request the services, the sanction against Moccio could go up an additional $11,635.

The underlying case is a civil rights class action in which  Moccio and Robins Kaplan represented the plaintiffs, who alleged civil rights violations related to an Isanti County strip search policy. The case settled in June for $775,000, and Moccio’s affidavit containing the birth dates and social security numbers of 179 claimants was subsequently filed in August. It has since been restricted by the court from public view.

Judge Davis’s order provides a hard lesson for attorneys and legal staff who deal with sensitive personal information, particularly social security numbers. As Judge Davis noted in his opinion, Rule 5 of the the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires attorneys to redact social security numbers and birth dates from court filings, restricting information only to the last four digits of the social security number and only to the year of birth.  Minnesota state courts have similar rules.