Johnson v. Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority
Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania
No. 1844 C.D. 2011
August 1, 2012
The Commonwealth Court ruled that records of grievances filed under a labor-management agreement between the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority and various unions are not exempt from disclosure under the Right to Know Law’s exceptions for records related to agency employee grievance materials and non-criminal investigations.
Background
Geoffrey Johnson requested records from the Convention Center relating to the Customer Satisfaction Agreement between the Convention Center and all trade unions that perform work there.
The Convention Center denied the request to the extent that it sought any records concerning grievances filed under the agreement, claiming they were exempt under the law as “grievance materials” “relating to an agency employee” and because they pertained to non-criminal investigations.
The Office of Open Records (“OOR”) ruled in favor of the Convention Center, stating that the agency met its burden of proving the records fell within these exemptions.
The requester then appealed to the Commonwealth Court.
Commonwealth Court decision
The court held that the law’s “grievance materials” exemption applies only to records relating to agencies and their employees, not agencies and the trade unions with whom they contract. This exemption “is designed to protect personal information about individual employees” of agencies and to shield “information relating to individual or personal grievances” concerning agency employees.
In this case, none of the trade union members were employees of the Convention Center, and the grievance materials related to disputes between the trade unions. Consequently, the exemption did not apply.
The court also ruled that the records were not exempt under the non-criminal investigation exception.
The court explained that this exemption only precludes disclosure of investigations “conducted as a part of an agency’s official duties” and the records must be “part of a systematic or searching inquiry, a detailed examination of official probe.”
Here, instead of an investigation, the records requested were merely part of the special procedures for dispute resolution established by the parties’ agreement. The court said these documents were not specific to Convention Center in its role as an agency, but rather as simply a party to the contract.
As a result, the non-criminal investigation exemption did not apply.