Times Mirror Co. v. Superior Court

• Decision Date: 22 July 1991
• Docket Number: No. S014461,S014461
• Citation: 53 Cal.3d 1325,813 P.2d 240,283 Cal.Rptr. 893
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 813 P.2d 240 TIMES MIRROR COMPANY, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of Sacramento County, Respondent, The STATE of California et al., Real Parties in Interest.

Page 893

283 Cal.Rptr. 893

53 Cal.3d 1325, 813 P.2d 240

TIMES MIRROR COMPANY, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of Sacramento County, Respondent, The STATE of California et al., Real Parties in Interest.

No. S014461.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

July 22, 1991.

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Stephen J. Burns, Rex S. Heinke, Ragnhild Reif, Kelli L. Sager and Karen N. Fredericksen, Sacramento, for petitioner.

Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, Edward P. Davis, Jr., Kevin M. Fong and Judy Alexander, San Jose, as amici curiae on behalf of petitioner.

No appearance for respondent.

John K. Van de Kamp, San Francisco, and Daniel E. Lungren, Attys. Gen., Robert L. Mukai, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., N. Eugene Hill, Asst. Atty. Gen., Richard M. Frank, Cathy A. Neff and Ted Prim, Deputy Attys. Gen., Sacramento, for real parties in interest.

De Witt W. Clinton, County Counsel, and David L. Muir, Deputy County Counsel, Los Angeles, as amici curiae on behalf of real parties in interest.

ARABIAN, Justice.

This case arises out of a dilemma inherent in the very nature of a free and open society. An informed and enlightened electorate is essential to a representative democracy. Yet even democratic governments require some degree of confidentiality to ensure, among other things, a candid exchange of ideas and opinions among responsible officials. This tension inevitably leads to conflict, and conflict invariably leads to the courthouse.

The question before us is whether, under the California Public Records Act (Gov.Code, § 6250 et seq.; hereafter the Act), ¹ the Governor of the State of California (Governor) properly refused a request to disclose his daily, weekly and monthly appointment calendars and schedules. For the reasons set forth below, we conclude that the records were properly withheld.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In August 1988, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times (Times) wrote the Governor requesting, under the Act, copies of his "appointment schedules, calendars, notebooks and any other documents that would list [the Governor's] daily activities as governor from [his] inauguration in 1983 to the present." The Governor's legal affairs secretary responded that the information requested was exempt from disclosure under section 6254, subdivision (l ) as "correspondence of and to the Governor or employees of the Governor's office...." ²

After its request to reconsider this decision was denied, the Times filed suit seeking injunctive and declaratory relief to obtain disclosure of the materials requested. In opposition, the Governor claimed that the records came within the correspondence exemption of section 6254, subdivision (l ), as well as the public interest exemption of section 6255, which applies when the public interest in nondisclosure "clearly outweighs" the public interest in disclosure. ³ Specifically, the Governor claimed that release of his appointment calendars and schedules would (1) create a risk to his personal security, and (2) inhibit the free and candid exchange of ideas necessary to the decisionmaking process.

In support of his opposition, the Governor submitted several declarations explaining the process by which his appointment calendars and schedules are created, the function they serve, and the implications of their public disclosure. Susan Pederson, the Governor's scheduling secretary, explained that after reviewing requests for meetings and invitations, she drafts a "scheduling memorandum" which is then reviewed with four senior staff members of the Governor's office. A final scheduling memorandum and a "tentative month-long calendar" are then prepared in consultation with the Governor; the calendar "is a schematic representation of engagements and meetings discussed in the scheduling memorandum." Thereafter, a finished month-long calendar is produced which identifies the Governor's "major time commitments for public appearances and private meetings." Copies of this calendar are given to the Governor, a "limited number" of members of the Governor's office, the Director of Finance, the Governor's security director and those responsible for the Governor's transportation.

Each week the scheduling secretary also formulates a schedule for the two upcoming weeks, which incorporates information from the monthly calendar as well as more recently approved appointments and appearances. The schedule for the first week is designated "final," that for the second is designated "advance." Lastly, a complete daily schedule is prepared on the afternoon or evening prior to each working day; the daily schedule "accounts for all the Governor's time from his departure from home in the morning until his departure from the office in the evening." The two-week and daily schedules are distributed to the same persons as the monthly calendar. According to Ms. Pederson, all persons receiving the monthly, two-week and daily schedules "do so with the understanding that they are to treat the schedule[s] and any accompanying material as confidential, and destroy the schedule once they have completed their use of it." ⁴ Ms. Pederson did not indicate in her declaration whether or to what extent copies of the final calendars and schedules are normally retained by herself, the Governor or anyone else in the Governor's office. ⁵

The level of detail set forth in the daily and two-week schedules is exhaustive. Each reflects, for example, "the timing and details of the Governor's arrivals and departures everywhere he goes in the course of his day ... whether and when family members and traveling companions will be with him, the particular aircraft or other means of transportation to be used, names of pilots and drivers, airport gate departures, specific hotel accommodations, [and] automobile and other ground arrangements." Thus, according to Ms. Pederson, the schedules and calendars necessarily reflect the daily "patterns and habits of the Governor," including the occasions "when he is likely to be alone."

Dennis Williams, the director of security for the Governor, also submitted a declaration. According to Mr. Williams, disclosure of the Governor's schedule "at any time in advance of the period to which they pertain would seriously impair the ability of [his] office to assure the Governor's security, and would constitute a potential threat to the Governor's safety, because the information they contain will enable the reader to know in advance and with relative precision when and where the Governor may be found, those persons who will be with him, and when he will be alone." Even disclosure of outdated schedules would pose a a security risk, in Mr. Williams's opinion, because they would "enable the reader to discern characteristic habits and activity patterns followed by the Governor, from which opportunities for access to the Governor's person may be surmised."

The Governor also submitted a declaration in support of his opposition to the Times complaint. In it he asserted that disclosure of his calendars and schedules would "be detrimental to the substantial public interest now served by protection of the confidential decisionmaking processes of [his] office...." He explained that he had always considered his schedules and calendars to be confidential and had required his advisors to treat them as such, "because of the essential character of many of the meetings and appointments reflected in these papers, because of the decision making reflected in ... these papers, and because of concerns pertaining to security."

Elaborating upon the potentially adverse consequences of disclosure on the decisionmaking process, the Governor noted that his office requires him to meet with people of wide-ranging views on a multiplicity of subjects. Because of the frequent sensitivity of the subjects under discussion, "it is necessary," he stated, "that the meetings themselves be fundamentally private, so that those present may feel free to express their candid opinions to me and so that I can be assured of the candor of their expressions...." Routine disclosure of the identities of the persons with whom the Governor meets, he asserted, would inhibit the deliberative process, in some instances by discouraging persons from attending meetings, in others by leading to unwarranted inferences about the subject under discussion. Furthermore, the Governor argued, although the calendars and schedules contain "facts" rather than opinions or advice, they necessarily reflect the Governor's "deliberative judgment" as to those persons, issues or events he considers to be of sufficient significance to occupy his time, and those he does not. Thus, the Governor claimed that disclosure of his calendars and schedules could substantially impair the quality of his decisions and the decisionmaking process of his office.

The Times's motion for injunctive and declaratory relief was heard on November 22, 1988. Following the hearing, the trial court denied the Times's motion for injunctive relief as well as its request for an in camera review, finding that the records were exempt from disclosure for each of the reasons urged by the Governor. However, the Court of Appeal reversed, holding that the records did not constitute correspondence under the Act; that disclosure would not implicate the deliberative process of government "because information relating to the content of meetings is not sought"; and that any security risk to the Governor, however slight, could not be evaluated without examining the documents themselves. Accordingly, the Court of Appeal remanded to the superior court "for an in camera review, segregation of any information posing a legitimate security risk, and disclosure of all nonexempt material."

Because we agree with the trial court that the public interest in not disclosing the records clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure (§ 6255), we shall reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal.

DISCUSSION

A. Scope of...