Pa. State Educ. Ass'n v. Commonwealth, Dep't of Cmty. & Econ. Dev.

148 A.3d 142

The Pennsylvania State Education Association, by Lynne Wilson, General Counsel, William McGill, F. Darlene Albaugh, Heather Kolanich, Wayne Davenport, Frederick Smith, Jamie McPoyle, Brianna Miller, Valerie Brown, Janet Layton, Korri Brown, Al Reitz, Lisa Lang, Brad Group and Randall Sovisky, Appellants

v.Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Community and Economic Development, Office of Open Records, and Erik Arneson, Executive Director of the Office of Open Records, Appellees

Pennsylvania Association of School Retirees, Ureneus V. Kirkwood, John B. Nye, Stephen M. Vak, and Richard Rowland and Simon Campbell, Intervenors

The Pennsylvania State Education Association, by Lynne Wilson, General Counsel, William McGill, F. Darlene Albaugh, Heather Kolanich, Wayne Davenport, Frederick Smith, Jamie McPoyle, Brianna Miller, Valerie Brown, Janet Layton, Korri Brown, Al Reitz, Lisa Lang, Brad Group and Randall Sovisky

v.Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Community and Economic Development, Office of Open Records, and Erik Arneson, Executive Director of the Office of Open Records

Pennsylvania Association of School Retirees, Ureneus V. Kirkwood, John B. Nye, Stephen M. Vak, and Richard Rowland and Simon Campbell, Intervenors

Cross Appeal of: Office of Open Records, and Erik Arneson, Executive Director of the Office of Open Records

No. 11 MAP 2015

No. 22 MAP 2015

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

ARGUED: April 5, 2016

DECIDED: October 18, 2016

Joseph Francis Canamucio, Richard Hristos Katsifis, Thomas W. Scott, Killian & Gephart, L.L.C., Harrisburg, for Pennsylvania State Education Ass'n, by Lynne Wilson, Gen. Counsel; W. McGill; et al., Appellants.

Kyle E. Applegate, Charles Rees Brown, Nathanael J. Byerly, J. Chadwick Schnee, Office of Open Records, James Patrick Barker, Office of the Atty. Gen., for Office of Open Records, & Erik Arneson, Executive Dir. of the OOR, Appellees.

Arthur F. McNulty, for Department of Community and Economic Development, Appellee.

Joshua D. Bonn, Craig James Staudenmaier, Nauman, Smith, Shissler & Hall, LLP, W. James Young, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Inc., for Simon Campbell, Intervenor.

Emily Hannah Edmunds, William W. Warren Jr., Saul Ewing, LLP, for Pennsylvania Ass'n of School Retirees; Ureneus Kirkwood; John Nye; Stephen Vak; & Richard Rowland, Intervenors.

Scott Everett Coburn, Pennsylvania State Ass'n of Township Supervisors, for Pennsylvania State Ass'n of Township Supervisors, Amicus Curiae.

Melissa Bevan Melewsky, Pennsylvania NewsMedia Ass'n, for Pennsylvania NewsMedia Ass'n, Amicus Curiae.

SAYLOR, C.J., BAER, TODD, DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, JJ.

OPINION

JUSTICE DONOHUE

This case involves an examination of the scope of the “personal security” exception to disclosure under the Right to Know Law (“RTKL”), 65 P.S. §§ 67.101 -67.3104, and, more specifically, whether school districts must disclose the home addresses of public school employees. Under the prior Right to Know Act, 65 P.S. §§ 66.1 -66.4 (repealed, effective January 1, 2009) (“RTKA”), this Court had on three occasions ruled that certain types of information, including home addresses, implicated the right to privacy under Article 1, Section 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, and thus required a balancing to determine whether the right to privacy outweighs the public's interest in dissemination. Sapp Roofing Co. v. Sheet Metal Workers' Int'l Ass'n, Local Union No. 12, 552 Pa. 105, 713 A.2d 627 (1998) (plurality); Pa. State Univ. v. State Employees' Retirement Board, 594 Pa. 244, 935 A.2d 530 (2007) ; Tribune – Review Publ. Co. v. Bodack, 599 Pa. 256, 961 A.2d 110 (2008). Our task here is to determine whether this analysis continues to obtain under the RTKL. We hold that it does.

The Pennsylvania State Education Association is an organization whose members consist of 150,000 public school teachers, support staff, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, custodians, secretaries and teachers' aides. On July 23, 2009, the organization and fourteen of its member public school employees (collectively, “PSEA”) commenced this action against the Office of Open Records, its Executive Director, and the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (collectively, the “OOR”),¹ seeking preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to prevent the release of home addresses of public school employees, and a declaration that the home addresses of public school employees are exempt from public access. PSEA asserted that numerous school districts had received requests for the names and addresses of public school employees, and some had already released this information. Petition for Review, ¶¶ 92-93. Contending that the public school employees lacked any adequate procedural remedy to prevent the release of private information protected by the Pennsylvania Constitution, PSEA sought to enjoin the OOR from continuing to sanction the violation of “the right to privacy of every...public school employee....” Id. ¶ 91.

In Count I, PSEA asserted that various exceptions to disclosure of information under the RTKL, including the “personal security exception,”² are applicable to protect against the release of public school employees' home addresses. In Count II, PSEA asserted that the RTKL must be so construed; otherwise, the statute interferes with the right of privacy conferred upon the public school employees by Article 1, Section 1 and Article 1, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Count III sought a preliminary injunction to prevent the OOR from directing any school to release the home addresses of public school employees, pending the outcome of a decision on the merits.

On July 28, 2009, after a hearing, the Commonwealth Court, per Senior Judge Rochelle Friedman, entered an order granting PSEA's request for a preliminary injunction prohibiting the disclosure of the home addresses of its members. Pa. State Educ. Ass'n ex rel. Wilson v. Commonwealth, Office of Open Records, 981 A.2d 383 (Pa. Commw. 2009). Judge Friedman concluded that PSEA had established that its member public school employees have a constitutionally protect privacy interest in their home addresses, whereas the OOR had offered no countervailing governmental interest in disclosure. Id. at 386.

This court has held that the benefits of public disclosure of home addresses are outweighed by an individual's privacy interest in his or her address. See Times Publishing Company, Inc. v. Michel, 159 Pa.Cmwlth. 398, 633 A.2d 1233 (1993) (relating to law enforcement officers and judges); Cypress Media, Inc. v. Hazleton Area School District, 708 A.2d 866 (Pa. Commw. 1998) (relating to prospective teachers); Rowland v. Public School Employees' Retirement System, 885 A.2d 621 (Pa. Commw. 2005) (relating to annuitants); and Hartman[v. Dep't. of Conservation & Nat. Res., 892 A.2d 897 (Pa. Commw. 2006) ] (relating to registered snowmobile owners).

Our [S]upreme [C]ourt also has held that the benefits of public disclosure of home addresses are outweighed by the privacy interest in those addresses. See Sapp Roofing Company, Inc. v. Sheet Metal Workers' International Association, Local Union No. 12, 552 Pa. 105, 713 A.2d 627 (1998) (relating to contractor employees). Our [S]upreme [C]ourt has explained that the disclosure of personal information, such as home addresses, reveals little, if anything, about the workings of government. Id.

Id. at 386. This Court affirmed Judge Friedman's issuance of the preliminary injunction order, “without prejudice to any party's right to appeal the Commonwealth Court's final disposition of these proceedings.” Pa. State Educ. Ass'n ex rel. Wilson v. Commonwealth, Office of Open Records, 606 Pa. 638, 2 A.3d 558 (2010) (per curiam).

The OOR filed preliminary objections to the petition for review, arguing, inter alia, that the Commonwealth Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because PSEA had not named an indispensable Commonwealth party as a defendant. On September 24, 2010, the Commonwealth Court sustained the OOR's preliminary objections and dismissed the case. Pa. State Educ. Ass'n ex rel. Wilson v. Commonwealth, Office of Open Records, 4 A.3d 1156, 1166 (Pa. Commw. 2010). The Commonwealth Court held that the OOR was not an appropriate defendant because, as a quasi-judicial tribunal, it had no interest in the outcome of the adjudication and, therefore, it could not serve as the governmental unit over which the Commonwealth Court could exercise its jurisdiction. Id. at 1164 (citing 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 761(a)(1) ). Instead, the Commonwealth Court ruled that the proper Commonwealth defendants were the individual school districts that actually received RTKL requests. Id. at 1165. In the absence of the OOR, and based upon the lack of any other Commonwealth agency properly named as a defendant, the Commonwealth Court concluded that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction.³ Id. at 1166.

The Commonwealth Court majority further made two separate points, although it did not base its decision on them. First, the majority recognized the possibility that it lacked jurisdiction over PSEA's declaratory judgment action because the matter was subject to “a tribunal other than a court.” Id. at 1162–63 (citing 42 Pa.C.S. § 7541(c)(2) ). In particular, the majority explained that by statute (65 P.S. § 67.1101(a) ), the OOR decides appeals from RTKL requests. Id. at 1163. The existence of an adequate statutory remedy, the majority reasoned, renders the exercise of equitable jurisdiction improper. Id. Aggrieved individuals may “file a written request to provide information or to appear before the appeals officer [of the OOR] or to file information in support of the requester's or agency's position.” Id. at 1168 (citing 65 P.S. § 67.1101(c)(1) ). Following the OOR's final determination in a matter, the majority noted that “a teacher may appeal that determination to the Court of Common Pleas of the County where the school district is located.” PSEA, 4 A.3d at...