Flowers v. First Hawaiian Bank

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held 7/2/2002 that a bank violated the federal Right to Financial Privacy Act when it turned over customer financial records pursuant to a subpoena in connection with a Section 32 Army proceeding. The bank believed an exception to the RFPA applied because the records were sought in connection with a proceeding to which the Army (a government authority) and the customer whose records were sought were parties. The liability resulted from the fact that no exception to the RFPA was applicable (because the subpoena was not a subpoena issued "under the Federal Rules of Civil or Criminal Procedure or comparable rules of other courts"), and the bank was not protected from liability when it turned over the records because it had not obtained a certificate of compliance from the Army.