Galvin v. Freedom of Information Com'n

• Decision Date: 25 November 1986
• Citation: 201 Conn. 448,518 A.2d 64
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: , 13 Media L. Rep. 2137 Catherine A. GALVIN v. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION COMMISSION et al.

Page 64

518 A.2d 64

201 Conn. 448, 13 Media L. Rep. 2137

Catherine A. GALVIN v. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION COMMISSION et al.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Oct. 2, 1986.

Decided Nov. 25, 1986.

Jane S. Scholl, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom were Richard J. Lynch, Asst. Atty. Gen., and, on brief, Joseph I. Lieberman, Atty. Gen., for appellant (plaintiff).

Steven Spellman, for appellees (defendant David W. Schoolcraft et al.)

Mitchell W. Pearlman, Gen. Counsel, Hartford, and Constance L. Chambers, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Freedom of Information Com'n, Meriden, filed a brief as amici curiae.

Before PETERS, C.J., and SHEA, DANNEHY, CALLAHAN and COVELLO, JJ.

PETERS, Chief Justice.

The dispositive issue on this appeal is whether autopsy reports compiled by the office of Connecticut's chief medical examiner are public records subject to public inspection under General Statutes § 1-19(a), ¹ the mainstay provision of the Freedom of Information Act. The plaintiff, Dr. Catherine A. Galvin, was the state's chief medical examiner at all times relevant to this appeal. She refused to furnish a copy of an autopsy report requested by the defendant David W. Schoolcraft, a reporter for the defendant Norwich Bulletin Company. The defendants complained to the Freedom of Information Commission. After a hearing, the FOIC ordered Dr. Galvin to furnish the defendants with a copy of the autopsy report. She appealed the decision to the Superior Court, Purtill, J., which sustained her appeal. The defendants appealed to the Appellate Court, which set aside the trial court's judgment and rendered judgment dismissing the plaintiff's appeal. After petitioning for certification, the plaintiff appealed to this court. We reverse the judgment of the Appellate Court.

The underlying facts are undisputed. On October 13, 1981, a 16 year old Norwich boy, Dwayne Dodd, was shot and killed in the course of a struggle with a Norwich police officer. Pursuant to General Statutes § 19a-406 (then § 19-530), ² the medical examiner's office performed an autopsy on Dodd's body. On October 21, 1981, at the office of the chief medical examiner in Farmington, the defendant Schoolcraft orally requested Dr. Galvin to furnish him with a copy of the autopsy report. The plaintiff refused to do so. She indicated, however, that Schoolcraft could obtain a copy of the report upon the completion of a pending investigation by the office of the state's attorney, provided that he obtained the Dodd family's consent to disclosure of the report. Neither Schoolcraft nor the defendant Norwich Bulletin ever sought or obtained such consent.

Shortly after the meeting with Dr. Galvin, Schoolcraft and the Bulletin filed a complaint with the Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC), seeking to compel disclosure of the autopsy report. The FOIC received the complaint on November 2, 1981. After a hearing on February 18, 1982, the FOIC rendered a decision ordering the plaintiff to disclose the report. On January 12, 1984, the Superior Court sustained the plaintiff's appeal of the FOIC's decision. The Appellate Court found error and ordered dismissal of the plaintiff's appeal in Galvin v. Freedom of Information Commission, 4 Conn.App. 468, 495 A.2d 1089 (1985).

On appeal to this court, the plaintiff claims that the Appellate Court erred in holding that: (1) state administrative regulations that limit public access to autopsy reports, ³ enacted pursuant to General Statutes § 19a-411, ⁴ are invalid under General Statutes § 1-19(a); and (2) General Statutes § 1-19(b)(2), which exempts from disclosure under § 1-19 "personnel or medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute an invasion of personal privacy," did not apply to the autopsy report in question. Because we agree with the plaintiff's first claim of error, we need not resolve her second claim. ⁵

I

Before addressing the merits of this appeal, we must resolve an important threshold question of jurisdiction. The FOIC's schedule for hearing and rendering decision in this case exceeded the time limitations imposed by General Statutes § 1-21i(b). See Hartford v. Freedom of Information Commission, 201 Conn. 421, 518 A.2d 49 (1986). We have previously held that the § 1-21i(b) time constraints are mandatory, and that the FOIC's failure to adhere to them invalidates its subsequent action. Board of Police Commissioners v. Freedom of Information Commission, 199 Conn. 451, 452-53, 507 A.2d 1385 (1986); Zoning Board of Appeals v. Freedom of Information Commission, 198 Conn. 498, 503-506, 503 A.2d 1161 (1986). After these decisions were rendered, the General Assembly enacted Public Acts 1986, No. 86-408, which, in § 2(a), retrospectively validated FOIC actions not in compliance with § 1-21i(b). In Hartford v. Freedom of Information Commission, supra, we held that this retrospective validation is a legitimate exercise of legislative authority. We therefore hold that Public Acts 1986, No. 86-408, § 2(a), preserved the FOIC's jurisdiction to act in this case.

II

The resolution of the plaintiff's dispositive claim requires the reconciliation of the provisions of two statutes, each of which deals with the public's right of access to records kept on file by public agencies. General Statutes § 19a-411 sets forth specific guidelines for the preparation, maintenance and disclosure of autopsy reports and other records of investigations conducted by the medical examiner's office. These statutory guidelines, and the administrative regulations which they expressly authorize, impose stricter limitations on the disclosure of such records than the Freedom of Information Act, General Statutes § 1-19, permits. By contrast, under § 1-19(a), "[e]xcept as otherwise provided by any federal law or state statute," all records of public agencies are public records subject to public inspection.

The plaintiff claims that § 19a-411 gives the Commission on Medicolegal Investigations which supervises the medical examiner's office, authority to promulgate restrictive regulations concerning the disclosure of autopsy reports. Thus, the plaintiff argues, § 19a-411 is a state statute coming within the "[e]xcept as otherwise provided" exception to § 1-19, with the result that autopsy reports fall outside the ambit of public records.

The defendants claim that § 19a-411 does not exclude autopsy reports from the coverage of the Freedom of Information Act. They argue that, read as a whole and in conjunction with § 1-19, § 19a-411 incorporates the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, and permits only such regulations on disclosure as do not conflict with the act. The defendants maintain that § 1-19(a), as amended by Public Acts 1975, No. 75-342, and Public Acts 1984, No. 84-112, ⁶ invalidates administrative regulations, such as those of the Commission on Medicolegal Investigations, that conflict with § 1-19. ⁷ The Appellate Court relied on this provision of § 1-19(a) to hold that § 1-19, as amended, superseded the commission's regulations limiting public access to autopsy reports. Galvin v. Freedom of Information Commission, supra, 4 Conn.App. at 479, 495 A.2d 1089.

In our view, the disposition of this case turns on whether the authority to restrict disclosure of autopsy reports stems solely from the regulations of the Commission on Medicolegal Investigations, or whether such authority is expressly derived from § 19a-411. ⁸ In the former case, the restrictions would be void under the provision of § 1-19(a) that invalidates regulations inconsistent with the Freedom of Information Act. In the latter case, the restrictions would be valid under the provision of § 1-19(a) that permits other statutes to exclude statutorily defined records from the category of public records to which the Freedom of Information Act applies. We are persuaded that autopsy reports fall within the latter category and that restrictions on their disclosure are therefore valid.

General Statutes § 19a-411 is not a model of the draftsman's art. We must rely on the tools of statutory construction to resolve its ambiguous and facially inconsistent provisions. It is an accepted principle of statutory construction that, if possible, the component parts of a statute should be construed harmoniously in order to render an overall reasonable interpretation. Shelby Mutual Ins. Co. v. Della Ghelfa, 200 Conn. 630, 637, 513 A.2d 52 (1986); Peck v. Jacquemin, 196 Conn. 53, 63, 491 A.2d 1043 (1985). Where statutes contain specific and general references covering the same subject matter, the specific references prevail over the general. Atwood v. Regional School District No. 15, 169 Conn. 613, 622, 363 A.2d 1038 (1975); Meriden v. Board of Tax Review, 161 Conn. 396, 402, 288 A.2d 435 (1971).

With these principles in mind, we turn to the construction of § 19a-411. The guidelines set forth in § 19a-411 for the disclosure of records of the medical examiner's office vary according to the categories of persons seeking disclosure. The statute differentiates among three classes of record seekers. Two of the classes are restricted to specific types of persons. The third class, into which the defendants fall, is general, encompassing "the public."

The first of the specific classes defined in § 19a-411 includes "[a]ny state's attorney, chief of police or other law enforcement official." Any such official "may, upon request, secure copies of such records or other information deemed necessary by him to the performance of his official duties." (Emphasis added.) Thus, the statute expressly requires law enforcement officials to make some showing of necessity as a condition to obtaining the records of the investigations of the medical examiner's office.

The second specific class in § 19a-411, less narrowly defined than the first, includes "[p]ublic authorities, professional, medical, legal or scientific bodies or universities or similar research bodies." Within this category, access to...