"Openness in government is essential to the functioning of a democracy"
-- California Chief Justice Ronald M. George
-- California Supreme Court decision - August 2007 - Police Records |
s134072 commission on peace officer standards v. superior court
s134253 international federation of professional and technical v. superior court of alameda county
August 28, 2007From the Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-press28aug28,1,2412542.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-californiaRecords on state employees open to public, high court rules
By Maura Dolan
Los Angeles Times Staff WriterSAN FRANCISCO -- The public has the right to inspect the hiring records of police agencies throughout California and to learn the names and salaries of government employees, the California Supreme Court decided Monday.
In two lawsuits brought by newspapers, the state high court ruled against a state commission and unions for police and other government workers and declared that salary and hiring records should be open to the public.
"Openness in government is essential to the functioning of a democracy," wrote Chief Justice Ronald M. George, the author of both majority decisions.
The Los Angeles Times brought the police hiring lawsuit after a reporter tried to investigate a tip that problem officers were moving from department to department around the state.
The Commission on Peace Officer Standards, which collects information from law enforcement departments, insisted the names and hiring dates of police were confidential, and a divided appeals' court ruled in favor of keeping the records secret.
In overturning that decision, the court said the public "clearly has a legitimate interest in the matters that The Times seeks to investigate."
The Contra Costa Times brought the salary suit, seeking the names and pay of Oakland employees who earned $100,000 a year or more. Lower courts ruled for the media, but employee unions appealed the case to the state's highest court.
The pair of rulings has "completely laid to rest" confusion in the trial courts over the kinds of information the public may obtain about law enforcement, said Kelli L. Sager, who represented the Los Angeles Times. A previous high court ruling had determined that records of police disciplinary appeals were not public. "It's a really important set of decisions in terms of the public's ability to get public information about public employees," Sager said.
Karl Olson, who represented the Contra Costa Times, called the decisions "a very important victory for the public's right to know." The fact that both were written by the chief justice gave them "a little bit extra oomph," Olson said.
George wrote that an officer's name and department "is information that ordinarily is made available, even to a person who is arrested by the officer, in any number of ways."
"The public's legitimate interest in the identity and activities of peace officers is even greater than its interest in those of the average public servant," George wrote. Justices Ming W. Chin and Marvin R. Baxter dissented in both decisions on the grounds that the law provides special protections for peace officers.
In the L.A. Times case, Chin held that the ruling "substitutes the majority's view of policy for that of the Legislature." He maintained that police officers' names, departments and dates of employment represented confidential personnel records.
"I am also not convinced of the majority's view that release of the requested information poses no threat to the safety of officers and their families," Chin wrote.
Justice Joyce L. Kennard favored releasing the names of the officers, but not the departments that employed them or the dates of their hiring.
In ruling that law enforcement hiring records should be made public, the court majority said the state could refuse to release names of undercover officers who are using their real names in their work. Sager said it is "highly unlikely" that there are many, if any, such officers.
Noting that the Los Angeles Times has spent five years trying to get the records, Sager said the newspaper will now try to recover its legal fees.
"If you have to fight government for years to get records that are public, you shouldn't have to pay for that," Sager said.
Times staff writer Ted Rohrlich, who had sought the police hiring records, said he was pleased with the decision.
"It is terrific that the court has seen fit to disclose this public information," Rohrlich said. "It is a shame it took so long, and of course the ruling requires that the case be returned to [Los Angeles County] Superior Court, so it will take longer."
In the Contra Costa Times case, Chin and Baxter said the names and salaries of peace officers should not be released unless the person seeking the information asked for the salary of a specific, named officer. Chin and Baxter did not object to the release of the names and salaries of other public employees.
Duane W. Reno, who represented a union against the Contra Costa Times, said the ruling threatened the privacy of government employees.
"It means that a telemarketer can walk up to City Hall and say,
'Give me computer files of all the names and salaries of your employees,' "Reno said."They can take that computer file . . . and make a specialized database."
maura.dolan@latimes.com
Court: Cities Must Give Records to Media By PAUL ELIAS 08.28.07, 11:33 AM ETThe California Supreme Court on Monday
handed two victories to newspapers seeking the salaries of public employees and termination records of police officers throughout the state.The court ruled that Oakland must release the names and salaries of police officers who earned more than $100,000 in 2004. Unions representing the police officers argued unsuccessfully that such government salary information should remain confidential out of privacy concerns.
"Counterbalancing any cognizable interest that public employees may have in avoiding disclosure of their salaries is the strong public interest in knowing how the government spends its money," Chief Justice Ronald George wrote for the majority opinion signed by three other justices. Another three justices each wrote separate opinions essentially agreeing with the majority take, with Justices Marvin Baxter and Ming Chin arguing that police officers' salaries should be exempt from public disclosure.
The ruling Monday was the result of a Contra Costa Times' lawsuit against Oakland and it also should settle an almost identical lawsuit filed by the San Jose Mercury News demanding the names and salaries of every San Jose city worker who earned more than $100,000 annually.
"I think this sets the rule for the state," said media attorney Karl Olson, who represented the Times. "These are landmark cases that serve the public's right to know."
Some of the largest newspapers companies serving California, including the Los Angeles Times owner Tribune Co. (nyse: TRB - news - people ), San Francisco Chronicle parent Hearst Corp, San Diego Union-Tribune owner The Copley Press, Sacramento Bee parent The McClatchy Co. (nyse: MNI - news - people ), New York Times Co. (nyse: NYT - news - people ) and Orange County Register owner Freedom Communications Inc. filed friends of the court briefs in support of the Times.
Duane Reno, who represented the Oakland police officers argued that publicizing the salaries would open the employees to unwanted sales calls.
"Unfortunately the Supreme Court didn't feel that was a big enough invasion of privacy," Reno said.
The court also ruled in a separate 5-2 opinion
that police officers' names, hiring and termination dates compiled in a massive state Department of Justice computer database also are fair game."It should have been a no brainer," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. http://www.rcfp.org/ |
"We are discovering that police departments across the country are increasingly withholding this kind of information."
The Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit joined the Los Angeles Times in its legal action against the California DOJ, which refused to turn over a decade's worth of police officer information to the newspaper. Several other news organizations, including The Associated Press, also filed court papers in support of the Times' case.
The newspaper said it planned to use the information to track the movements of police officers from one department to the other while also examining staffing levels.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press.
All rights reserved.
This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed
Court shines light on government salaries
Justices rule public employees should not expect pay privacyBy Thomas Peele, STAFF WRITER
Inside Bay Area
http://www.insidebayarea.com/ |The salaries of government employees in California, including police officers, are a public record and must be available upon request to "ensure transparency," the state Supreme Court ruled in a decision released Monday.
"Openness in government is essential to the functioning of a democracy," Chief Justice Ronald M. George wrote in a
30-page opinion, ending a lawsuit the Contra Costa Times — a sister paper to The Argus — filed more than three years ago against the city of Oakland.
Justices found that government employees should not have an expectation of privacy about their gross salaries even if disclosure of the information "may cause discomfort or embarrassment."
The justices wrote that police salaries also must be made public, except in narrow circumstances "where an officer's anonymity is essential to his or her safety," the decision states. The justices affirmed that police cannot use broad claims of officer safety to make blanket denials of salary information.
The ruling overturns a 2003 appellate court decision involving five cities in SanMateo County where employee unions blocked the release of salaries to the Palo Alto Daily News.
In that case, known as the Priceless decision after the Daily News' former owner, a Superior Court judge ruled that employees' privacy rights trumped the newspaper's right to the salaries. The appellate court affirmation of that decision became the basis for local governments around the state refusing to release salaries.
"Unfortunately, it's been the instinct of many government bureaucrats nowadays to slam the door on inquiries for public information, and the Priceless decision always gave them the ammunition they needed," said Kevin Keane, vice president of news for the Bay Area News Group-East Bay, the company that owns this newspaper.
"Monday's court ruling put Priceless in its rightful place. It's a great win for the First Amendment," Keane said.
Also on Monday the Supreme Court released another long-anticipated decision in a related case. It ruled that the public is also entitled to the names of police officers and their dates of hire. The state Commission on Police Officer's Standards and Training claimed those records were confidential.
The high court ordered that case, brought by the Los Angeles Times, back to Superior Court to work out how to release the information.
The decision in the Contra Costa Times case is a defeat for several government worker unions. The Oakland Police Officers Association and Local 21 of the Professional and Technical Engineers fought to keep the salaries private, appealing a 2004 Alameda County Superior Court decision, which ordered the records released.
"Despite the wrong-headed and persistent opposition of public employee unions, the court has reaffirmed a basic tenet of American democracy, that public business must be conducted in public," said John Armstrong, president and publisher of the BANG-East Bay.
The newspaper's attorney, Karl Olson, called the decision "a landmark opinion affirming the public's right of access to information about how the government is run and how tax dollars are spent.
"Three different courts and 11 judicial officers have now looked at this case and all have concluded that the public's right to know public employee salaries is paramount," Olson said.
A lawyer for white collar workers in Oakland who appealed to the high court said the justices ignored privacy issues.
"This court has less concerns about privacy rights than the federal courts," Duane Reno, Local 21's lawyer, said Monday.
Reno argued unsuccessfully before three courts that the release of gross salary data for individual employees violated privacy rights and makes them susceptible to telemarketers and identity thieves.
"The California Supreme Court doesn't think it's important if you have people calling you when you don't want to be called," Reno said.
The attorney who represented the Oakland Police Officers Association, Alison Berry Wilkinson, did not return telephone calls Monday.
An attorney who filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of police officers around the state said that the exemption issue for some police officers leaves the case open-ended.
"What is a high risk position?" said David E. Mastagni. "You could argue that (all police) are high risk. It is possible the exception could consume the rule."
Olson dismissed that argument, noting that the justices specifically wrote that concerns over some officers could not be used to block the release of salaries of an entire department.
Justice Ming W. Chin wrote in a dissenting opinion that he agreed with police that no officer's salary should be disclosed.
Public records advocates praised the Supreme Court's ruling.
It "is one of the most unqualified and ringing endorsements of open government that the Court has ever issued," said Peter Scheer of the California First Amendment Collation.
"There is no longer any doubt" about the public nature of government salaries.
Lucy Dalglish of the Washington D.C.-based Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press said the decision shows that salaries "should not be a big secret and are not a big secret anywhere else in America. Openness leads to accountable government."
Long time public records attorney Terry Francke of the watchdog group Californian's Aware said the decision is "more sweeping" than anticipated is "a very ringing endorsement of government scrutiny."
Every daily newspaper in the state supported the Times effort either through friend of the court briefs or through the California Newspaper Publisher's Association.
"The significance of this case is that the people of this state will now be able to understand the decisions about how public employees are paid," Tom Newton, the association's general counsel said Monday.
One public employee union supported the Times — the Coalition of University Employees at the University of California.
"The notion that 'personal privacy' should prevent the public from knowing how much public employees are paid was always a farce," said the association lawyer, Thomas R. Burke. "Taxpayers pay the salaries of these public employees. Secreting salary information only served to hide inequities in pay — people who were being paid too much, or in many cases, too little."
The case drew wide interest. In addition to the California dailies, the New York Times filed a friend of the court brief as did the ACLU and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association.
Unions representing law enforcement groups, including the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, filed briefs in support of the Oakland Police union.
Police have long held that any records of an officers employment is confidential, even salaries. State law does grant greater restrictions on police records than those of other government workers. Police are the only employees to which the public does not have a right to disciplinary records, for example.
But until the decision involving the Palo Alto Daily News in 2003, most government agencies released police pay records.
Tuesday Aug 28
Court OKs right to know pay of public employees
http://www.paloaltodailynews.com/article/2007-8-28-all-salary-rulingBy Thomas Peele / MediaNews
The salaries of government employees in California, including police officers, are a public record and must be available upon request to "ensure transparency in government," the state Supreme Court ruled in a decision released Monday morning.
The right to privacy of the information that employee unions argued "is not a reasonable one," the justices wrote, ending a lawsuit the Contra Costa Times filed more than three years ago against the city of Oakland.
Even if disclosure of the information "may cause discomfort or embarrassment" it must be released, the decision states.
The justices wrote that police salaries must be disclosed except in narrow circumstances if an officer's anonymity is essential to his or her safety. The justices affirmed that police cannot use broad claims of officer safety to make blanket denials of salary information.
The decision is a defeat for the public employee unions that had appealed a 2004 decision of an Alameda County Superior Court judge who ordered the records released.
"Despite the wrong-headed and persistent opposition of public employee unions, the court has reaffirmed a basic tenet of American democracy that public business must be conducted in public," said John Armstrong president and publisher of the Times.
The Times attorney Karl Olson said the decision upholds the long-held premise that salary information is public and it overrules a 2003 appellate court decision that governments have cited to block access to salary data.
"I think this is a landmark opinion affirming the public's right of access to information about how the government is run and how tax dollars are spent," Olson said.
The decision ends a case that began more than three years ago when the Times sued Oakland after the city changed policy and refused to no longer release the gross salaries of its employees after years of making such information public.
Two lower courts sided with the newspaper. Two unions representing Oakland employees appealed to the state Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court appeal drew wide interest. All of the daily newspapers in the state and the New York Times filed friend of the court briefs siding with the Times. The ACLU and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association and a union representing University of California employees also filed such briefs.
Unions representing law enforcement groups, including the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, filed briefs in opposition.
Police have long held that any records of an officer's employment is confidential, even salaries. State law does grant greater restrictions on police records than those of other government workers. Police are the only employees to which the public does not have a right to disciplinary records, for example.
But until the decision involving the Palo Alto Daily News in 2003, most government agencies released police pay records.
To read the opinion go to: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S134072.pdf
Timeline of the fight for government employee salary information in California.
February 2003: The Palo Alto Daily News files routine California Public Records Act requests with 10 San Mateo County cities for the names and yearly salaries, including bonuses and overtime, of all government employees. Two employee unions object and five cities - Atherton, Belmont Burlingame, Foster City, and San Carlos reject the request.
April 2, 2003: San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Rosemary Pfeiffer grants an injunction stopping the release of the salary data, ruling that employees' right to privacy trumps the public's right to the salaries. The Daily News soon appeals. The San Jose Mercury News joins the suit.
Oct. 29, 2003: The California First District Court of Appeal rules in favor of the employees, upholding Pfeiffer's decision. The decision says employees' salaries are held in personnel files, which are off-limits to the public. The case becomes known as the "Priceless decision" for the name of the Daily News' owner.
May 21, 2004: The newspapers settle the case by allowing the cities to release a list of all employee salaries and separate list of all employees names. The lists don't associate a specific employee with a specific salary. The newspapers' attorney, James Chadwick, says an appeal with the Supreme Court was not filed because the unions initiated the case, and the media would prefer to settle the matter through a case of its own choosing.
June 7, 2004: Oakland, which has released employees' salaries with names for at least a decade, announces it will no longer make them public. Following a closed-door session, the City Council cites privacy concerns and bases the decision on the Priceless case.
June 28, 2004: The Times reports that some cities and government agencies are now citing the Priceless case in announcing salaries will not be released.
July 22, 2004: The Times sues Oakland in Alameda County Superior Court, demanding the names and salaries of the city's employees.
Aug. 27 2007: The Supreme Court rules that government employee salaries are a public record.
(10) Commission on Peace Officer Standards v. Superior Court of Sacramento County (Los Angeles Times Communications, Real Party in Interest), S134072#05-167 Commission on Peace Officer Standards v. Superior Court of Sacramento
County (Los Angeles Times Communications, Real Party in Interest), S134072. (C045494; 128 Cal.App.4th 281; Superior Court of Sacramento County; 03CS01077.) Petition for review after the Court of Appeal granted a petition for peremptory writ of mandate. This case includes the following issue: Is the information sought in this case, including the names and certain employment information pertaining to individual peace officers throughout the state, information obtained from confidential “personnel records” under Penal Code sections 832.7 and 832.8, and thus exempt from disclosure under the California Public Records Act (Gov. Code, § 6250 et seq.) pursuant to Government Code section 6254(k)?