Local Open Government Blog : Open Government Law : Foster Pepper Law Firm : Northwest, Seattle, Spokane, Portland Lawyer & Attorney

A group of internists at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine (UTCOM) organized as a tax-exempt, non-profit corporation, identified as the Internal Medicine Educational Foundation (IMEF). The purpose of IMEF is to "provide educational programs, research and support services for the internal medicine residency program" at UTCOM. When the IMEF refused plaintiff's request for records, plaintiff sued under the Tennessee Public Records Act. Like Washington State, Tennessee applies its PRA to those agencies described by the law and to entities that are the "functional equivalent of a government agency." Functional equivalency is determined by certain factors:

(1) whether the entity performs a governmental function;

(2) the extent of government funding;

(3) the extent of government control over the entity; and

(4) whether the entity was created by legislative act.

Those factors are then applied under a "totality of the circumstances" test to determine if the entity is the functional equivalent of an agency. Applying the factors, the Tennessee Supreme Court on February 28, 2011 found that IMEF was not the functional equivalent of an agency. As a result, IMEF was not subject to that state's PRA.

Washington's Public Records Act, at Chapter 42.56 RCW, similarly may be applied to an entity when found to be the functional equivalent of an agency. See Telford v. Thurston County Board of Commissioners, 95 Wash.App. 149, 974 P.2d 886 (1999). In Telford, the Court of Appeals held that while the Washington State Association of Counties (WSAC) and the Washington Association of County Officials (WACO) were not agencies as such, they were the “functional equivalent” of agencies and therefore subject to the campaign finance provisions of the Washington Public Disclosure Act. The court in Telford did not address the separate provisions of the Public Disclosure Act relating to public records (now, the Washington Public Records Act). And, the decision did not address other entities similar to WSAC and WACO.

In 2002, the Washington Attorney General issued a formal opinion in response to an inquiry regarding the Association of Washington Cities (AWC) and other organizations. See AGO 2002 No. 2 (April 10, 2002). In that formal Opinion, the Attorney General examined whether entities whose membership includes public agencies were separately subject to the Public Records Act. The opinion examined the Telford analysis (factors similar to those applied by the Tennessee Court), but concluded that any application of the statute to “AWC in a public records context must await the development of an actual factual situation to which the principles set forth in the statute, as interpreted in Telford, might be applied.”

Subsequent Washington cases have reached divergent results, based primarily on the extent of an entity's government funding and governmental authority. For example, in Spokane Research & Defense Fund v. West Central Community Dev. Ass’n, 133 Wn. App. 602 (2006), the court found that a contract vendor in a city park was not the functional equivalent of a public agency. But, in Clarke v. Tri-Cities Animal Care and Control Shelter, 144 Wn. App. 185 (2008), the court found a non-profit entity providing enforcement of animal control laws under contract with city and county governments was the functional equivalent of an agency.
 

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The March 30 edition of the New York Times reports that a research group in Michigan has made a public records request of the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University for any e-mails involving the Wisconsin labor turmoil, including any e-mails with reference to Rachel Maddow – the MSNBC talk show host.

Greg Schulz, the director of academic freedom for the American Association of University Professors is quoted as asserting “We think this will have a chilling effect on academic freedom. We’ve never seen FOIA requests used like this before.”

In the State of Washington, however, the issue of academic freedom v. freedom of information has long been decided in favor of the freedom of information. In 1994 the Washington Supreme Court held that documents regarding research proposals for primate experiments that didn’t fall within specific statutory exemptions were subject to disclosure under the State’s Public Records Act – despite the contention of the University of Washington that academic freedom protected those records from disclosure. Progressive Animal Rights Society (PAWS) v. University of Washington, 125 Wn.2d 243, 884 P.2d 592 (1994).

In PAWS, the Washington Supreme Court directly addressed the University’s argument that “the grant proposal should be exempt in its entirety because disclosure of a researcher’s preliminary ideas violates a putative constitutional privilege of academic freedom.” Rejecting that argument, the Court held that neither the popular initiative that first adopted Washington’s Public Record Act nor the legislature in later amendments had created an exemption from the Public Records Act for academics. Further the Court noted that, “Even assuming there were plausible grounds for doing so, it would be difficult to grant special First Amendment protection to public university employees while denying it to other state employees.”

On the other hand, both the trial court and the Supreme Court held that information in the proposal that would reveal research hypothesis, data, valuable formula and the like should be redacted from the documents as they are covered by exemptions to the Public Records Act. The Court also excluded the peer review “pink sheets” from disclosure, as they were documents reflecting a deliberative process for an unsuccessful proposal and thus exempt under the “deliberative process” exemption. But, the Court also noted “Once the proposal becomes funded, it clearly becomes ‘implemented’ for purposes of this exemption and the pink sheets thereby become disclosable.”
 

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On March 29, 2011, Division II of the Washington Court of Appeals held that a city is entitled to conduct discovery in a case the city initiated against a records requestor to affirm the City’s interpretation of the Public Records Act (PRA). But the court found the city’s interrogatories about the requestor’s past litigation history were improper. City of Lakewood v. Koenig.

Koenig, a regular requestor under the Washington Public Records Act, had requested documents from the City of Lakewood related to alleged wrongdoing by three police officers. The City provided information but redacted driver’s license numbers of officers, victims and eyewitnesses. When Koenig did not respond to a request from the City asking if he felt the documents provided were adequate, the City started a lawsuit under RCW 42.56.540 to confirm the validity of the City’s redactions.

When Koenig was served with interrogatories and requests for production, he resisted any questions relating to his past litigation history. He argued that those discovery requests were improper as not allowed by the law. Additionally, the City had no discovery rights in a PRA case the City itself had initiated, because the identity or background or any other information about a requestor has no bearing on document disclosure issues. The Court, however, affirmed that the discovery process is available to the City in this, as in any other case (unless an exception exists under statute or court rule). Since the PRA is not listed as a proceeding barred from discovery under court rule or statute, the City was entitled to conduct otherwise proper discovery.

But, the Court ruled, the City is not entitled to look into the litigation history of Koenig. The City asserted that Koenig was a well-known PRA requester and had a history of waiting until the last day before the statute of limitations ran before filing suit as a strategy to increase eventual penalties. The Court, however, found that the City’s perceptions had no bearing on the nature of the documents or on the ultimate penalties for non-disclosure. In fact, the Court explicitly held that waiting to file a lawsuit until the last day of the statute of limitations for PRA requests was within the right of any litigant, including Mr. Koenig, whatever that litigant’s objectives. On the other hand, the Court did acknowledge that there could be legitimate issues in discovery regarding economic losses of the requestor that might be caused by delay or by incomplete responses of the public agency, as those losses could later affect the amount of penalties for non-disclosure.

Because the City won on the issue of discovery, and Koenig won on the issue of specific interrogatories, the Court ruled that neither party was entitled to fees, especially as the underlying issue of redacting the driver’s license numbers had yet to be decided. One judge dissented, but only on the issue of whether Koenig should have received attorney’s fees under CR 26(c) for having successfully blocked a part of the City’s discovery request.
 

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The Washington State Senate has passed Substitute Senate Bill 5553, which requires that most public agencies owning and maintaining a website post certain information, including agendas, legislation and minutes.

SSB 5553 adds a new section to chapter 42.30 RCW, the Open Public Meetings Act. The text of SSB 5553 is available here.

While the goal of SSB 5553 is admirable, many public agencies have expressed serious concerns, including uncertainty about the finality of legislation, inability to amend legislation at regular meetings and the specter of personal liability for members of governing boards.

The State House of Representatives Committee on State Government and Tribal Affairs has scheduled a public hearing on SSB 5553 for 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, March 24.

For more information about the provisions of SSB 5553 and some of the concerns raised, click here.
 

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Has the Obama Administration effected real change in FOIA responsiveness? A recent Associated Press article, claims that the federal Freedom of Information Act is unwieldy and difficult, and that only the most patient and persistent requesters actually obtain the sought-for information. The article is critical of agencies’ efforts in implementing President Obama’s promise to make government more open and release more information rapidly.

During an event sponsored for Sunshine Week, March 13-19, reported in the AP article, Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli is quoted as stating that more records are going out unredacted than ever before. “Where we once might have looked at a document, noticed a piece that could be released, and redacted the rest, we’re now more often determining that we can release the whole thing,” Perrelli is quoted as saying. However, a witness before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Thomas Fitton of Judicial Watch, stated that the conservative watchdog group has “filed 44 lawsuits to force the Obama administration to comply with the law.”

But perhaps there has been a change in how the Administration views the FOIA – now that it is on the inside. In a blog posted March 16 to celebrate Sunshine Week, Steve Croley, a Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy, points out that it is not in the public’s interests to release every document: “Our government also owes its citizens, among other things, protection of their personal privacy and business confidentiality, effective law enforcement, and a strong national defense.”

In Washington State on the other hand, the courts continue to liberally construe the state’s Public Records Act, and continue to extended its reach. See, for example, the expansive interpretation of the Public Records Act to include records contained on a city council member’s home computer discussed in our blog post of December 22, 2010, “City of Monroe, Washington Pays $157,394 to Settle Public Records Act Case.”
 

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The latest public records decision from the U.S. Supreme Court has put Western Washington on the map.  The Court held 8-1 that Navy maps showing ammunition stockpiles at Indian Island (in Jefferson County, near Port Townsend) could not be withheld from disclosure under Exemption 2 of the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”).  Exemption 2 allows an entity to withhold records related to the internal personnel rules and practices of an agency.

In Milner v. Department of the Navy, the Navy argued that release of the maps would threaten public safety; the maps depict distances where damage could result from hypothetical explosions in buildings where weapons, ammunition and explosives are stored. But as reported by the Kitsap Sun, public safety is the very reason the maps were requested by local activist Glen Milner, who wanted information about whether his community might be endangered by the ammunition supply.

The crux of the case was whether Exemption 2 can be used to block the release of the type of documents in question. According to some of the amici curiae briefs before the Court (primarily news organizations and the ACLU), Exemption 2 had, over the years, become a catchall exemption for the government. “High 2” (as the exemption had become known) had expanded beyond its plain language through administrative interpretations and lower court rulings, allowing the government to withhold documents that were not clearly connected to an agency’s personnel rules or internal practices. Instead, based on a 1981 D.C. Circuit Court opinion, the “High 2” exemption had come to shield any internal documents whose release might risk circumvention of agency functions.

The Supreme Court held in favor of disclosure, finding that the maps were not “personnel rules or practices” under the plain language of Exemption 2, thus rejecting the 30-year old D.C. Circuit interpretation. Writing for the Court, Justice Kagan stated that the past tolerance of the expansive “High 2” reading of the statute  “pos[ed] the risk that FOIA would become less a disclosure than a ‘withholding statute’”. In a lone dissent, Justice Breyer stated that he would “let sleeping dogs lie”, noting that the courts have supported the broad use of Exemption 2 for the past 30 years.

The Court also noted that the Navy could rely on other FOIA exemptions to limit disclosure of the maps, such as the national security exemption (Exemption 1) or the law enforcement exemption (Exemption 7(f)) which allows an agency to withhold records that "could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual." But these issues were not decided by the District Court.

This case is likely to have a substantial impact on disclosure requests by prohibiting all agencies’ continued use of the “High 2” exemption to support expansive refusals to disclose  records. The Supreme Court has reminded us that exemptions to FOIA are narrowly construed, and all government agencies should think carefully about the narrow applicability of exemptions when asked for public records.

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Allegheny County, Pennsylvania contracts with hundreds of service providers. One of those contracts is with A Second Chance, Inc. (ASCI), where ASCI evaluates an individual’s qualifications to provide foster care to dependent children. A Pittsburgh television station requested that the County provide the “names, birth dates and hire dates of all employees” of ASCI who provide services to the County. Not surprisingly, the County said that those records were not available to the County and they rejected the television station’s request under the Pennsylvania Right-To-Know-Law (RTKL). Without explaining how the County should get the records, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania (a court whose jurisdiction is generally limited to legal matters involving State and local governments and regulatory agencies) held that the employment records of ASCI were “public records” and accessible under the RTKL. It is unclear what process would be used under the RTKL by a local government to recover such records from a contractor.

In Washington, a contracting agency that provides governmental services is generally considered an agency and subject to the Washington Public Records Act. Clarke v. Tri-Cities Animal Care & Control Shelter, 144 Wn. App. 185 (2008). In the most common situation, the request would be made directly to the contracting agency (in Pennsylvania, ASCI). But in the event a request is not made directly to the contracting agency, but instead to the local government, the local government must either recover the documents from the contractor or maintain a separate court action to protect the local government from liability under the Public Records Act. See, e.g., City of Federal Way v. Koenig, 167 Wn.2d 341 (2009), discussed in the October 23, 2009 posting on this site: “WA Supreme Court Re-Affirms that Public Records Act Does Not Apply to the Judiciary.”

In Washington, as in Pennsylvania, the fact that an agency subject to the Washington Public Records Act does not possess a document does not necessarily preclude agency responsibility for producing a public record. See Concerned Ratepayers v. PUD No. 1, 138 Wn.2d 950 (1999) (design specifications for power plant prepared by PUD’s contractor, but not in possession of PUD, required to be disclosed).
 

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In this era of WikiLeaks’ disclosure of secret State Department and military cables, the question of what is and what is not “confidential” government information has become more opaque.

Conflicting viewpoints on the issue of what is “confidential” also arise in the local government context, as reported in the February 28, 2011 edition of the Everett Herald: “Legality of disclosing executive session information not an easy call.”

The Everett Herald reported on the censure of an Everett School Board member for disclosing information from a closed, executive session about a potential building purchase. But, the newspaper noted there is a real dispute between the school board and the censured school board member about whether the information she discussed potential acquisition of an office building for multiple educational uses was already public knowledge.

The Everett Herald article points to a continuing dilemma for public officials in Washington, especially for an elected official who finds conflict between the official’s interest in wide ranging conversations with constituents, and the official’s duty to the office to which elected. Washington law expressly prohibits a public official from “disclosing confidential information gained by reason of the officer’s position.” RCW 42.23.070(4).

For elected board members, confidential information is most frequently obtained in a part of a meeting when in executive session under one of the reasons listed in RCW 42.30.110. Listed as the second of those reasons is for an executive session to “consider the selection of a site or the acquisition of real estate by lease or purchase when public knowledge regarding such consideration would cause a likelihood of increased price;” – the specific provision that is the subject the Everett School Board censure.

One can well understand that if a government’s interest in purchasing a specific building or parcel of land and its ultimate price limit is known, that this information may well cause the government and its constituents to pay more that it otherwise would. Thus the justification for an executive session in the first place and the parallel prohibition against disclosing confidential information all make sense. But what is and what is not confidential is often disputed, as illustrated by the Everett School Board controversy. This also highlights the common law and statutory requirements that the elected official’s first responsibility is to the agency, notwithstanding the interest in public communications. See, RCW 42.23. 070(3) (prohibiting a municipal officer from holding another position that would “require or induce” the official to disclose confidential information acquired by reason of the public office). Best practice for any governing board facing this dilemma is to explicitly identify in the executive session itself what it considers to be the particular elements that are and should remain confidential.
 

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