Daily Gazette Co. v. City of Schenectady
| Citation | 688 N.Y.S.2d 472,93 N.Y.2d 145,710 N.E.2d 1072 |
| Parties | , 710 N.E.2d 1072, 1999 N.Y. Slip Op. 3021 In the Matter of DAILY GAZETTE COMPANY et al., Respondents, v. CITY OF SCHENECTADY, et al., Appellants. |
| Decision Date | 06 April 1999 |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals |
The City of Schenectady appeals as of right, upon a two-(CPLR 5601[a] ), from the order of the Appellate Division (242 A.D.2d 164, 673 N.Y.S.2d 783) requiring it to turn over to petitioners Schenectady Police Department records regarding disciplinary action against 18 officers, pursuant to the State's Freedom of Information Law (FOIL)(Public Officers Law article 6, §§ 84-90). Petitioners are two newspapers covering Schenectady and the greater Capital District, the Daily Gazette and Capital Newspapers Division of the Hearst Corporation.
The FOIL requests followed news reports that, in the late evening of May 11, 1997, a chartered bus load of off-duty law enforcement officers, celebrating a police officer's bachelor party, became involved in a confrontation with two civilians in an automobile. During the incident, the bus occupants reportedly pelted the civilians' vehicle with raw eggs. The Schenectady police chief confirmed that the egg-throwing incident had occurred, that, under a promise of confidentiality, 18 Schenectady police officers had admitted their participation in the incident in various degrees, and that disciplinary sanctions were imposed ranging from written reprimands to loss of vacation days and overtime pay. News articles additionally reported that the officers had agreed to pay the owner of the automobile for the cost of repairs of damage sustained in the incident.
When the Police Department refused to furnish petitioners additional information concerning the disciplinary action, they filed FOIL requests seeking, respectively, "all documents related to disciplinary actions," or the identities of the sanctioned officers and the specific punishment imposed upon each. These requests were rejected by the City's records officer, and that determination was upheld on administrative appeal to the Mayor of the City.
Petitioners then brought these proceedings in Supreme Court to compel disclosure. Supreme Court rejected all the grounds for nondisclosure advanced by the City other than the FOIL exception for records that "are specifically exempted from disclosure by state or federal statute" (Public Officers Law § 87[a] ). The court concluded that these records were specifically exempted under Civil Rights Law § 50-a. The first subdivision of that section provides:
"All personnel records, used to evaluate performance toward continued employment or promotion [of police officers, correction officers or firefighters] * * * shall be considered confidential and not subject to inspection or review without the express written consent of such [officers] * * * except as may be mandated by lawful court order."
Subdivisions 2 and 3 of section 50-a set forth a procedure to obtain a court order of disclosure, giving any interested party an opportunity to be heard. Subdivision 4 exempts from the confidentiality of such records a disclosure to the Attorney General, a district attorney or county, town or village attorney, a grand jury and any governmental agency requiring records "in the furtherance of their official functions."
The Appellate Division reversed, concluding that the records of the disciplinary actions taken against the 18 officers, albeit part of their personnel files and pertinent to evaluate the officers regarding continued employment or promotion, were nevertheless not exempt from FOIL disclosure under Civil Rights Law § 50-a.
On the City's appeal from the reversal of Supreme Court's determination, petitioners essentially reiterate their successful position before the Appellate Division. They read our decisions in Matter of Capital Newspapers v. Burns, 67 N.Y.2d 562, 505 N.Y.S.2d 576, 496 N.E.2d 665, and Matter of Prisoners' Legal Services v. New York State Department of Correctional Services, 73 N.Y.2d 26, 538 N.Y.S.2d 190, 535 N.E.2d 243, as strictly limiting the Civil Rights Law § 50-a exemption from FOIL disclosure to a request made in the context of actual or potential litigation. Petitioners' test for nondisclosure is whether, in the context of the particular request for access to the records, the information contained therein is likely to be used in some pending or then actually anticipated litigation. They claim that this narrow litigation context is absent here because they are newspapers whose purpose is not to use the records in a legal proceeding, but to provide newsworthy information to the general public, and because any claim on behalf of the injured parties in the egg-throwing incident is now time-barred. Thus, they assert that their uncontradicted affidavits disclaiming any intent to bring a lawsuit against the officers should be conclusive for their unimpeded right of access to the disciplinary information contained in the officers' personnel records.
In our view, petitioners' exceedingly narrow interpretation of the Civil Rights Law § 50-a bar to FOIL disclosure conflicts with the plain wording of the statute, is contrary to its legislative history and is inconsistent with our FOIL precedents. It would undermine the paramount objectives of the Legislature in enacting section 50-a.
First, the literal language of the statute is inconsistent with petitioners' position that access to police and corrections officers' and firefighters' personnel records by a simple FOIL request turns on the status and purpose of the person seeking the records. Civil Rights Law § 50-a unambiguously defines the records that are immune from indiscriminate disclosure. It then sets up a legal process whereby the confidentiality of the records may be lifted by a court, but only after an in camera inspection and affording affected parties notice and an opportunity to be heard. Notably, the statute does indeed provide for some exemption from confidentiality of an officer's personnel records based on the status and purpose of the one desiring disclosure. However, rather than fashioning some general exemption from confidentiality based on the distinction urged by petitioners, section 50-a specifically limits any purpose/status distinctions governing the right to disclosure on request, as we have already noted, to public prosecutors and other law officials and governmental agencies seeking access for the purpose of "further[ing] * * * their official functions." As a policy choice, undisputably within its constitutional prerogatives which we are constrained to respect, the Legislature elected to shield the personnel records of these officers from disclosure upon request with only a strictly limited status/purpose exception. The Legislature did not choose to include news gathering organizations within the statutorily exempted class entitled to automatic access, despite their important role in fulfilling the public interest in open government.
The legislative history of Civil Rights Law § 50-a, as originally adopted and later amended, likewise simply cannot be read to support petitioners' construction of its limited reach and application in connection with a FOIL request--i.e., that derogatory and potentially injurious information in an officer's personnel records may lose its statutory shield of confidentiality and unqualifiedly become public knowledge if the entity seeking FOIL access is a news-gathering organization that is not contemplating suit. Section 50-a was first enacted into law (L. 1976, ch. 413) some two years after passage of the original FOIL legislation (L. 1974 ch. 578) granting public access to the kinds of records sought here. The Legislature was well aware of the use of FOIL to obtain such records.
The statute was designed to prevent abusive exploitation of personally damaging information contained in officers' personnel records--perhaps most often in connection with a criminal defense attorney's FOIL application for purposes of general cross-examination of a police witness in a criminal prosecution. Undeniably from the legislative record, however, the legislative objective went beyond precluding disclosure on behalf of defendants in pending criminal cases (see, Mem. of Senator Padavan and Member of Assembly DeSalvio, Mem. of Div. of Criminal...
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