Elections Review Committee of Eighth Utilities Dist. v. Freedom of Information Com'n

• Decision Date: 30 July 1991
• Docket Number: No. 14264,14264
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: The ELECTIONS REVIEW COMMITTEE OF the EIGHTH UTILITIES DISTRICT v. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION COMMISSION, et al.

Page 313

595 A.2d 313

219 Conn. 685

The ELECTIONS REVIEW COMMITTEE OF the EIGHTH UTILITIES DISTRICT v. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION COMMISSION, et al.

No. 14264.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued May 29, 1991.

Decided July 30, 1991.

Constance L. Chambers, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Meriden, for appellant (named defendant).

Dan E. LaBelle, Manchester, for appellee (plaintiff).

Before PETERS, C.J., and SHEA, CALLAHAN, GLASS and BORDEN, JJ.

BORDEN, Associate Justice.

The dispositive issue in this administrative appeal is whether the plaintiff, the elections review committee of the eighth utilities district (ERC), an ad hoc committee composed of one district director and three volunteer electors, is a public agency within the meaning of General Statutes § 1-18a(a). ¹ Section 1-18a(a) was amended by No. 83-372 ² of the 1983 Public Acts to include in the definition of a "public agency" any "committee" of a public agency. We conclude that the legislature, in amending § 1-18a(a), intended the term "committee" to encompass only a committee that is a subunit of the public agency that established it and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The material facts are undisputed. The eighth utilities district (district) is the corporate and political body responsible for providing sanitary, sewer and fire services for the town of Manchester. The district is governed by a board of seven members, consisting of a president and six directors. The parties do not dispute that the district, including the board, is a public agency within the meaning of § 1-18a(a). After the annual meeting of electors for the district in May, 1988, the district board established the ERC to study the procedures of the annual meeting in order to expedite that process and to obtain greater participation by the electors.

The committee appointed was composed of one district director and three volunteer electors who held no office in the district. The ERC was requested to file a report with the district, but it had no authority to change the procedures of the annual meeting or to alter any provisions of the by-laws. The ERC met on several occasions, publishing notice of each meeting. Although one member of the ERC, Ellen Burns Landers, the district director, kept informal notes of the meetings, the ERC did not keep minutes and did not follow all of the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA); General Statutes §§ 1-7 through 1-21k; for meetings of public agencies. See General Statutes § 1-21. ³ On March 29, 1989, the defendant Perry Dodson, an elector of the district, filed a request with the district clerk to examine the minutes of the meetings of the ERC. ⁴ Not having received a response from the ERC, Dodson, on April 12, 1989, filed a petition for a hearing with the freedom of information commission (FOIC), claiming, inter alia, that the failure of the ERC to provide him with the minutes of its meetings was a violation of the FOIA because § 1-18a(a) provides that "committees" of public agencies are likewise public agencies and, therefore, are subject to the requirements of the FOIA. Although Landers thereafter provided Dodson with a transcribed copy of her informal notes, Dodson did not receive the formal minutes of the meetings that he had requested.

At the hearing before the FOIC, the ERC claimed that it was not subject to the requirements of the FOIA mandating that minutes of meetings be maintained because it was not a public agency within the meaning of § 1-18a(a). Specifically, the ERC claimed that, because all of the committee members were not members of the district board, the public agency that created the ERC, and because it did not possess decisionmaking authority, it did not constitute a public agency pursuant to § 1-18a(a). The FOIC held, however, that because the ERC was a committee of the district board, which is a public agency, the committee is also a public agency under § 1-18a(a), and, therefore, subject to the provisions of the FOIA. The FOIC ordered the ERC to reconstruct the minutes of its meetings, to provide Dodson with a copy of the minutes and henceforth to comply with the requirements of §§ 1-19(a) and 1-21(a). ⁵

The ERC appealed to the Superior Court, which sustained the appeal, concluding that the legislature, in amending § 1-18a(a) to include committees as public agencies, intended "committee" to refer only to subunits composed of the respective public agency members, and not to a "committee" composed of some or all persons who are not agency members. The FOIC appealed to the Appellate Court, and we transferred the appeal to this court pursuant to Practice Book § 4023.

The FOIC claims that the trial court improperly concluded that the ERC is not a public agency within the meaning of § 1-18a(a) because: (1) the term "committee" is unambiguous and, therefore, the trial court improperly construed its meaning to exclude the ERC; and (2) even if the term "committee" were ambiguous such that it required construction, (a) the court failed to defer to the construction of the term by the FOIC, and (b) the court failed properly to ascertain the intent of the legislature in enacting No. 83-372 of the 1983 Public Acts. We conclude that the statutory language of § 1-18a(a) is not absolutely clear and that the term "committee" was intended by the legislature only to include as public agencies committees that are subunits of the public agencies that create them.

The question whether the legislature intended a committee such as the ERC to be subject to the provisions of the FOIA when it enacted No. 83-372 ⁶ of the 1983 Public Acts presents an issue of statutory interpretation and, therefore, is a question of law. Connecticut Humane Society v. Freedom of Information Commission, 218 Conn. 757, 761, 591 A.2d 395 (1991). "The objective of statutory construction is to give effect to the intended purpose of the legislature." State v. Delafose, 185 Conn. 517, 521, 441 A.2d 158 (1981). It is axiomatic that, where the statutory language is clear and unambiguous, construction of the statute by reference to its history and purpose is unnecessary. Winslow v. Lewis-Shepard, Inc., 216 Conn. 533, 538, 582 A.2d 1174 (1990). That axiom only applies in full force, however, "[w]here ... the language of a statute is ... absolutely clear" on its face and where no ambiguity is raised in applying the statute in a particular case. (Emphasis in original.) Anderson v. Ludgin, 175 Conn. 545, 554, 400 A.2d 712 (1978); see also Shelby Mutual Ins. Co. v. Della Ghelfa, 3 Conn.App. 432, 437-38, 489 A.2d 398 (1985), aff'd, 200 Conn. 630, 513 A.2d 52 (1986).

On appeal, the FOIC first argues that the language of § 1-18a(a) is unambiguous, and, therefore, the trial court's reference to the legislative history was improper. University of Connecticut v. Freedom of Information Commission, 217 Conn. 322, 328, 585 A.2d 690 (1991). We disagree, however, that the language of the statute in question is "absolutely clear"; (emphasis omitted) Anderson v. Ludgin, supra, 175 Conn. at 554, 400 A.2d 712; when considered together with the rest of the statute and its background. A "committee" has been defined as "a body of persons delegated to consider, investigate, or take action upon and [usually] to report concerning some matter or business...." Webster's Third New International Dictionary. ⁷ Thus, although the ERC is a "committee" within the ordinary dictionary definition, it is unclear from an examination of the text of the statute whether the legislature intended the phrase "including any committee of any such office, subdivision, [etc.] ..." (emphasis added) to encompass a committee that is composed of some or all persons who are not agency members. A "committee of" an agency would include a body composed solely of nonmembers of the agency to whom the agency had assigned a particular task only if the use of the possessive preposition were equivalent to "created by." Under such a construction, even one person, wholly unassociated with the agency except for the project assigned to him for study and recommendation, such as an outside consultant, would constitute a "committee of" the agency. A narrow interpretation would limit that term to a committee composed exclusively of agency members or including a majority of agency members. Within these outer bounds of the term are those committees, like the ERC, that include one or more, but not a majority of agency members.

"When application of the statute to a particular situation reveals a latent ambiguity in seemingly unambiguous language ... we turn for guidance to the purpose of the statute and its legislative history to resolve that ambiguity." University of Connecticut v. Freedom of Information Commission, supra, 217 Conn. at 328, 585 A.2d 690. Therefore, we now examine other sources of possible enlightenment, namely, the history, purpose, objective and underlying policy of the statute. Anderson v. Ludgin, supra, 175 Conn. at 552-53, 400 A.2d 712; see also Shelby Mutual Ins. Co. v. Della Ghelfa, supra, 3 Conn.App. at 438, 489 A.2d 398.

The FOIC claims that, should we conclude that § 1-18a(a) requires construction, then the trial court failed properly to ascertain the intent of the legislature in enacting No. 83-372 of the 1983 Public Acts. After an examination of the relevant legislative history, we disagree.

While we agree with the trial court that much of the history of No. 83-372 of the 1983 Public Acts "is not too helpful," ⁸ our review discloses that Representative John W. Atkin, who reported the bill onto the floor of the House of Representatives, in addressing the underlying purpose and rationale of the bill, explicitly referred to the testimony of Mitchell Pearlman, the executive director and general counsel of the FOIC, at the legislative committee hearing. Atkin stated that, as "pointed out" by Pearlman, the purpose of the bill was to resolve a divergence between two trial...