Case Title: Advertiser Co. v. Wallis

Citation: 493 So. 2d 1365

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1986-07-11T00:00:00Z

Document:
493 So. 2d 1365 (1986)
The ADVERTISER COMPANY, etc.
v.
Kenneth WALLIS, etc.
The ADVERTISER COMPANY, etc.
v.
Faye S. BAGGIANO, etc.
84-557 CER.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
July 11, 1986.
*1366 M.R. Nachman, Jr., of Steiner, Crum & Baker, Montgomery, for appellant.
R. Emmett Poundstone, III, and G.R. Trawick, Asst. Attys. Gen., for Alabama Dept. of Mental Health and Mental Retardation.
Charles A. Graddick, Atty. Gen., and Herman H. Hamilton, Jr., Robert H. Harris, and James H. McLemore, Asst. Attys. Gen., for Baggiano, Commissioner of Alabama Medicaid Agency, and Alabama Medicaid Agency.
ALMON, Justice.
This case presents two certified questions from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. This Court has jurisdiction to answer such questions under Article VI, § 6.02(b)(3), of the Constitution of 1901, as amended by Amendment Number 328. See also Rule 18, Alabama Rules of Appellate Procedure.
The certified questions, isolated from the certification's statement of facts, read:
The Alabama Sunshine Law, Code 1975, § 13A-14-2, reads:
The certification sets forth the following facts:
The Sunshine Law applies to a few named commissions, boards, and councils, not including the Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation or the Medicaid Agency, and to "any other body, board or commission" which disburses public funds or exercises legislative or judicial functions. Both the Department and the Agency disburse public funds, so the question is whether either is a "body, board or commission" within the ambit of the statute.
Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language (Unabridged) (1971) includes the following pertinent definitions:
*1369 Thus, these words all denote a group of individuals acting together to perform some purpose. We think significant also the phrase found in the definition of "board," that the persons "sit in council." As we shall set forth more fully in the following discussion, we find that the entities to which the Sunshine Law applies are only those governed by a group of individuals who sit as a deliberative body to set policy regarding the public matters with which the entity is entrusted. Indeed, it is meetings at which this group deliberation and decision making take place that must be open to the public.
The Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation acts "through its commissioner." Code 1975, §§ 22-50-9 and -11, as amended by Act 84-242, 1984 Ala.Acts. As noted in the District Court's certification, the governor and the commissioner of mental health and mental retardation constitute a public corporation known as the Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation. Section 22-50-4, as amended. The statutory scheme does not contemplate the governor and the commissioner meeting as a board or commission, but only that "[t]he commissioner shall serve at the pleasure of the governor." Section 22-50-16, as amended.
The department does have a board of trustees, but the statute makes the board advisory only:
Code 1975, § 22-50-5(a), as amended. In contrast, the mental health board of the former department of mental health was the governing body of the department. Code 1975, e.g., §§ 22-50-4, -9, -11, as enacted by Act 881, 1965 Ala.Acts.
Similarly, with the Medicaid Agency, the Medicaid Commissioner is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the governor. The commissioner administers the agency subject to the approval of the governor. The briefs and record indicate that the Medicaid Agency meets with a medical care advisory committee and holds an annual public conference to discuss the program. Furthermore, the agency is subject to extensive Federal regulations.
As can be seen from the above description of the functioning of these two entities and from the Federal court's certification of facts, neither of the meetings in question was a meeting of a "body, board, or commission" charged with disbursing public funds. Thus, the meetings were not subject to the Sunshine Law.
The only decisions on point cited by the parties or disclosed by our research support the proposition that the Sunshine Laws of the various jurisdictions apply to meetings of multi-member bodies, not those of agencies or departments administered by a single individual.
A Florida appellate court has held that meetings between a president of a junior college and his staff or representatives of college employees are not meetings governed by the Sunshine Law. Bennett v. Warden, 333 So. 2d 97 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App. 1976). In Wood v. Marston, 442 So. 2d 934 (Fla.1983), the Supreme Court of Florida somewhat limited the holding in Bennett by approving the holding that "fact-finding staff consultations are not subject to the Sunshine Law," id., at 940, but disapproving the implication that any "official act which is in and of itself decision-making can be `remote' from the decision-making process, regardless of how many decision-making steps go into the ultimate decision," id., at 941. Thus, under Wood v. Marston and other Florida cases, if a governing body delegates part of its decision-making power to a committee of staff members, the committee's meetings are as much subject to the Sunshine Law as the governing body's meetings. This still assumes, however, that the governing body is a group that holds meetings subject to the *1370 Sunshine Law. We do not find Cape Publications, Inc. v. City of Palm Bay, 473 So. 2d 222, 225 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1985), inconsistent with this interpretation, even though it states that "it is the nature of the act to be performed, not the make-up of the group, that determines the application of the statute." Even so, the meeting must be one held by a group, not between an individual administrator and other individuals.
As examples of cases generally on the point that meetings subject to the various states' Sunshine Laws are meetings of members of deliberative groups, we note People ex rel. Difanis v. Barr, 83 Ill. 2d 191, 46 Ill.Dec., 678, 414 N.E.2d 731 (1980); City of New Carrollton v. Rogers, 287 Md. 56, 410 A.2d 1070 (1980); Woodbury Daily Times Co. v. Gloucester County Sewerage Authority, 151 N.J.Super. 160, 376 A.2d 607 (N.J.Super.Ct.Law Div.1977), aff'd, 158 N.J.Super. 448, 386 A.2d 445 (N.J.Super.Ct. App.Div.1978).
The Federal Sunshine Act, 5 U.S.C. 552b (1982), enacted in 1976, requires agencies "headed by a collegial body composed of two or more individual members" to conduct open meetings. Id., § 552b(a)(1). In remarks on the application of this law, the chairman of the Section of Administrative Law of the American Bar Association has written:
Chairman's Message, 37 Admin.Law Rev. v (1985). This is at least one indication that the trend of administrative law is not in the direction the Advertiser Company urges, i.e., toward extending Sunshine Laws to agencies and departments which do not function under a multi-member governing body.
The two recent cases decided by this Court regarding the Sunshine Law are not on point. Both involved bodies specifically named in the Sunshine Law. Dale v. Birmingham News Co., 452 So. 2d 1321 (Ala. 1984) (school board); Miglionico v. Birmingham News Co., 378 So. 2d 677 (Ala. 1979) (city council).
For the foregoing reasons, we answer the certified questions by replying that neither the meeting of the commissioner of mental health and mental retardation with members of his staff and union representatives nor the meeting of the commissioner of Medicaid with members of her staff and representatives of a hospital was subject to the Alabama Sunshine Law.
QUESTIONS ANSWERED.
All the Justices concur.