Maher v. Freedom of Information Com'n

• Decision Date: 21 February 1984
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: , Medicare & Medicaid Guide P 33,638, 10 Media L. Rep. 1509 Edward W. MAHER, Commissioner, Department of Income Maintenance v. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION COMMISSION et al.

Page 321

472 A.2d 321

192 Conn. 310, Medicare & Medicaid Guide P 33,638,

10 Media L. Rep. 1509

Edward W. MAHER, Commissioner, Department of Income Maintenance v. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION COMMISSION et al.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Dec. 2, 1983.

Decided Feb. 21, 1984.

Edmund C. Walsh, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom, on the brief, was Joseph I. Lieberman, Atty. Gen., for appellant (plaintiff).

Constance L. Chambers, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Meriden, with whom, on the brief, was Mitchell W. Pearlman, Gen. Counsel, for appellee (named defendant).

Josephine Marchetti, Hartford, with whom, on the brief, was J. Charles Mokriski, Hartford, for appellee (defendant The Hartford Courant).

Before SPEZIALE, C.J., and PETERS, PARSKEY, SHEA and GRILLO, JJ.

PETERS, Associate Justice.

The principal issue in this case is the accommodation of the interest in public disclosure guaranteed by the Freedom of Information Act ¹ with the interest in confidentiality guaranteed to welfare recipients by General Statutes § 17-83. This case arose out of a request by The Hartford Courant (hereinafter Courant) for computer tapes concerning medication prescribed for Connecticut Medicaid recipients. When the Department of Income Maintenance (hereinafter DIM) refused to comply with part of this request, the Courant filed a complaint with the Freedom of Information Commission (hereinafter FOIC) seeking an order to compel the DIM to disclose the requested information. After a hearing before a single hearing officer, and review by the commission of the hearing officer's recommended order, the FOIC ordered disclosure. The DIM unsuccessfully appealed the FOIC order in the trial court, and, after petition for certification, appealed to this court. We find error.

The Courant's request for disclosure ² sought detailed information about prescription drugs made available to public assistance recipients under the Medicaid program. The DIM immediately agreed to furnish some of this information. With regard to individual physicians prescribing such medication and individual pharmacists filling such prescriptions, the DIM stated that it would produce lists of prescribers and facilities, including their identifying numbers, and the amount of payments by DIM to each prescriber and facility. ³ The parties disagreed about information sought by the Courant which the DIM claimed would, inter alia, intrude upon the confidentiality of individual Medicaid recipients. The Courant had, from the outset, indicated that individual recipients could be identified by a unique number, rather than by name. It clarified its request to ask for computer tapes to contain "at least the following information: provider number, provider name and address, case number, location code, facility number, facility name, prescriber number, prescriber name, date of service, drug description, strength of drug prescribed, prescription number, refill number, date prescription was written, quantity of drug prescribed, the drug code and the amount billed to the state." ⁴

The FOIC upheld the complaint of the Courant in its entirety. Over the objection of the DIM, it issued an order in two parts, stating: "1. The respondent [DIM] shall forthwith provide the complainants [Courant] with the information requested, deleting applicant or recipient names and substituting an identifying code unique to this purpose. 2. The information requested shall be in the form of magnetic computer tape which must be produced by the most efficient and economical means and for which complainant will bear the cost."

In dismissing the DIM's subsequent appeal from this order, the trial court held that none of the DIM's various defenses of law should be sustained. In addition, it opined that the order of the FOIC complied with the nondisclosure requirements of General Statutes § 17-83(b). ⁵ Although the court recognized that this statute was designed to protect the privacy of individual recipients and applicants, it held that "[t]his privacy is not breached by making the information available on an anonymous basis, so long as identities of applicants and recipients, and any information (such as case numbers) which could conceivably lead to the identity of such persons, are not disclosed."

On this appeal, the plaintiff claims that the trial court erred, for several reasons, in dismissing the DIM's appeal from the FOIC order enforcing the Courant's request for Medicaid prescription information. The DIM claims that the FOIC could not properly order it to comply with the Courant's request because: (1) the DIM itself maintains no records in the form requested by the Courant; (2) the DIM's records are exempt under the statutory exemption for law enforcement agencies; (3) the FOIC lacked jurisdiction to order disclosures forbidden by federal law; (4) the DIM's records were exempt as confidential under federal law; (5) the DIM's records were exempt as confidential under state law. We agree only with the last of these claims.

Since it is undisputed that the DIM is a state agency for purposes of the Freedom of Information Act, the DIM is bound, by General Statutes § 1-19, to maintain its records as public records available for public inspection unless these records fall within one of the statutory exemptions to disclosure. The exemptions contained in § 1-19 reflect "a legislative intention to balance the public's right to know what its agencies are doing, with the governmental and private needs for confidentiality.... [I]t is this balance of the governmental and private needs for confidentiality with the public right to know that must govern the interpretation and application of the Freedom of Information Act. The general rule, under the act, however, is disclosure.... Exceptions to that rule will be narrowly construed in light of the underlying purpose of the act ... and the burden of proving the applicability of an exemption rests upon the agency claiming it." Wilson v. Freedom of Information Commission, 181 Conn. 324, 328-29, 435 A.2d 353 (1980).

The DIM's first claim of error urges us to conclude that the FOIC had no authority to require the DIM to produce computer tapes that involved the preparation of a new computer program. It is factually undisputed that the DIM maintains a computer storage system which collects data derived from a file of invoices of Medicaid prescriptions, that the DIM has access to that data base through programs previously developed for its own purposes, and that none of the existing programs will produce the magnetic tapes which the Courant has requested. The DIM argues that § 1-19(a) of the Freedom of Information Act, which requires disclosure of "records maintained ... by any public agency," should not be interpreted to require a state agency to provide information or records which the agency itself does not have readily available or which it does not maintain in the normal course of its operations. The DIM recognizes, as it must, that its argument is difficult to reconcile with the explicit command of § 1-19a that "[a]ny public agency which maintains its records in a computer storage system shall provide a printout of any data properly identified." Where, as here, the information sought is presently stored in the agency's data base, and the cost of the new program is to be borne by the person seeking the information, an order compelling production of computer tapes is within the powers statutorily conferred upon the FOIC. See Long v. United States Internal Revenue Service, 596 F.2d 362, 365-67 (9th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 917, 100 S.Ct. 1851, 64 L.Ed.2d 271 (1980); State ex rel. Stephan v. Harder, 230 Kan. 573, 579, 581-83, 589-90, 641 P.2d 366 (1982).

The DIM's second claim of error argues that its records are exempt from disclosure under § 1-19(b)(3) ⁶ as "records of law enforcement agencies ... compiled in connection with the detection or investigation of crime ...." The DIM relies, for this claim, on its statutory obligation to cooperate in the detection, prevention and prosecution of Medicaid fraud. Pursuant to that obligation, the DIM allegedly acts as an initiating investigatory agent of the state's attorney's Medicaid fraud control unit. The data collected in its computer storage system thus qualify, according to the DIM, as information "compiled in connection with the detection or investigation of crime ...." The trial court concluded, however, that the DIM had failed to establish its status as a law enforcement agency. ⁷ We too are unpersuaded that a public agency is properly to be characterized as a law enforcement agency for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act on the sole basis that it acts to transmit information to a state fraud control unit. The terms of the agreement between the DIM and the office of the chief state's attorney clearly vest exclusive control over the operation and administration of the Medicaid fraud unit in the state's attorney. Under these circumstances, the DIM's second claim of error must be rejected.

We can conveniently consider the DIM's third and fourth claims of error jointly, because they both are premised upon the provisions of the federal law establishing the Medicaid program, Title XIX of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1396 et seq. Jurisdictionally, the DIM argues that, in the absence of the federal agency charged with interpretation of Title XIX, the FOIC lacked authority to interpret the confidentiality provisions of the federal statute. Substantively, the DIM argues that Title XIX and regulations promulgated thereunder require state agencies to protect the privacy of Medicaid recipients. The disclosures ordered by the FOIC are therefore alleged to be improper because they violate federal law and hence place the state in jeopardy of federal sanctions such as loss of federal reimbursement for Title XIX expenditures. Both of these arguments miss the mark because they misconceive the nature of the...