Sapp Roofing Co., Inc. v. Sheet Metal Workers' Intern. Ass'n, Local Union No. 12

• Decision Date: 24 June 1998
• Citation: 713 A.2d 627,552 Pa. 105
• Parties: SAPP ROOFING COMPANY, INC., Appellant, v. SHEET METAL WORKERS' INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION, LOCAL UNION NO. 12, and North Hills School District and W. David Hall, as records custodian for North Hills School District, Appellees.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 627

713 A.2d 627

552 Pa. 105

SAPP ROOFING COMPANY, INC., Appellant, v. SHEET METAL WORKERS' INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION, LOCAL UNION NO. 12, and North Hills School District and W David Hall, as records custodian for North Hills School District, Appellees.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued Sept. 18, 1996.

Decided June 24, 1998.

John R. Orie, Jr., Pittsburgh, for Sapp Roofing Company, Inc.

Ernest B. Orsatti, Pittsburgh, for Sheet Metal Workers International Association.

Michael J. Witherel, Pittsburgh, for North Hills School District & W. David Hall.

Before FLAHERTY, C.J., and ZAPPALA, CAPPY, CASTILLE, and NIGRO, JJ.

OPINION ANNOUNCING THE JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

CASTILLE, Justice.

The issue in this appeal is whether the Right to Know Act, 65 P.S. § 66.2, which provides that "[e]very public record of an agency shall, at reasonable times, be open for examination and inspection by any citizen of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania," gives a labor union the right of access to a private contractor's payroll records which are in the possession of a public agency for work performed pursuant to a contract with the public agency. The Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County denied the request of appellant Sapp Roofing Company, Inc. ("Sapp Roofing") for an injunction enjoining appellee Sheet Metal Workers' International Association, Local Union, No. 12 ("union") from accessing Sapp Roofing's payroll records from a project for appellee North Hills School District ("school district"). The Commonwealth Court affirmed. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

On July 8, 1993, the union sent a written request to the school district seeking copies of certified payroll records in the custody of the school district for contractual roofing work performed on three school district buildings by Sapp Roofing, a non-union roofing company. The three roofing jobs were public projects for which the school district received state funding. Sapp Roofing submitted the payroll records in question to the school district under the Prevailing Wage Act, 43 P.S. §§ 165-1, et seq.

Section 165-6 of the Prevailing Wage Act, 43 P.S. § 165-6, requires that:

Every contractor and subcontractor shall keep an accurate record showing the name, craft and the actual hourly wage paid to each workman employed by him in connection with public work, and such record shall be preserved for two years from date of payment. The record shall be open at all reasonable hours for inspection of the public body awarding the contract and to the secretary.

The Prevailing Wage Act, 43 P.S. § 165-10, requires the agency to obtain certain records from the contractor prior to disbursing final payment on a contract:

Before final payment is made by, or on behalf of any public body of any sum or sums due on public work, it shall be the duty of the treasurer of the public body or other officer or person charged with the custody and disbursement of the funds of the public body to require the contractor to file statements, in writing, in form satisfactory to the secretary, certifying to the amounts then due and owing from such contractor and subcontractor, filing such statement to any and all workmen for wages due on account of public work, setting forth therein the names of the persons whose wages are unpaid and the amount due to each respectively....

The records requested by the union in this case contain the names and addresses of Sapp Roofing's employees on the three roofing projects, their social security numbers, job positions, rates of pay and hours worked on the jobs. The union sought the records for the stated purpose of ensuring that Sapp Roofing complied with the Prevailing Wage Act, claiming that the records are public records under the Right to Know Act. The Right to Know Act, 65 P.S. § 66.1, defines a public record as:

Any account, voucher or contract dealing with the receipt or disbursement of funds by an agency or its acquisition, use or disposal of services or of supplies, materials, equipment or other property and any minute, order or decision by an agency fixing the personal or property rights, privileges, immunities, duties or obligations of any person or group of persons: Provided, that the term "public records" shall not mean any report, communication or other paper, the publication of which would disclose the institution, progress or result of an investigation undertaken by an agency in the performance of its official duties, except those reports filed by agencies pertaining to safety and health in industrial plants; it shall not include any record, document, material, exhibit, pleading, report, memorandum or other paper, access to or the publication of which is prohibited, restricted or forbidden by statute law or order or decree of court, or which would operate to the prejudice or impairment of the person's reputation or personal security, or which would result in the loss by the Commonwealth or any of its political subdivisions or commissions or State or municipal authorities of Federal funds, excepting therefrom however any record of any conviction for any criminal act.

In Community College of Philadelphia v. Brown, 544 Pa. 31, 33, 674 A.2d 670, 671 (1996), this Court stated:

Generally, the Right to Know Act opens public records to examination and inspection by any citizen, excepting papers the publication of which would disclose the institution, progress or result of an official investigation. The intent of the act was to clarify the right of examination and inspection of public records by all citizens. Wiley v. Woods, 393 Pa. 341, 350, 141 A.2d 844, (1958).

The Right to Know Act applies to "public records" of "public agencies."

See also McMullan v. Wohlgemuth, 453 Pa. 147, 158, 308 A.2d 888, 894 (1973) ("The 'Right-To-Know Act' gives 'any member of the Commonwealth' a statutory right of access to every 'public record' of a state agency.").

Pursuant to the Right to Know Act, to be available for inspection, the records must be both public records and records of a state agency. The union contends and the trial court and Commonwealth Court properly held that the requested records fit within the statutory definition of a public record because they are an account dealing with the disbursement of funds by an agency, ¹ and further that they are the school district's records under the Prevailing Wage Act. We agree that the payroll records are public records because they are records evidencing a disbursement by the school district.

In order to be records of an agency, the records must "constitute an essential component of an agency decision." Tribune-Review Publishing Co. v. Allegheny Cty. Housing Authority, 662 A.2d 677, 682 (Pa.Commw.1995), alloc.denied, 546 Pa. 688, 686 A.2d 1315 (1996) (citingConsumer Education & Protective Ass'n v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transp. Authority, 125 Pa. Commw. 143, 557 A.2d 1123 (1989)). The regulations implementing the Prevailing Wage Act require the officer of the public body charged with custody of the public funds to ensure that all wages due to workmen by the contractor are paid, and if not, the officer must withhold the amount of unpaid wages from disbursements to the contractor. 34 Pa.Code § 9.110(b). Thus, the records submitted by Sapp Roofing are, indeed, an essential component of the school district's decision regarding whether and what amount to pay to Sapp Roofing. Therefore, the records in question are the school district's records for purposes of the Prevailing Wage Act.

The purpose of the Right to Know Act is to allow any individual or entity, be it a person or a union, access to public records to discover information about the workings of our government. However, the right of access to public records is tempered by the definition of a public record contained in the Act:

[I]t shall not include any record, document, material, exhibit, pleading, report, memorandum or other paper, access to or the publication of which is prohibited, restricted or forbidden by statute, law or order or decree of court, or which would operate to the prejudice or impairment of the person's reputation or personal security ... (emphasis added).

65 P.S. § 66.1. Thus, a record that otherwise may be public in nature is not a public record if its disclosure would impair a person's personal security.

We must now decide whether the records requested by the union here would potentially impair the personal security of Sapp Roofing's employees and whether that potential impairment outweighs the public interest in the dissemination of the records. The union argues that the payroll records at issue are vital to its efforts to ensure that the school district complied with the Prevailing Wage Act, and that there is a strong public interest in monitoring compliance with that act. Sapp Roofing, on the other hand, contends that the employees' privacy rights will be infringed by the dissemination of the documents containing employees' names, home...