Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/pa-commonwealth-court/1691613.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 01:29:52+00:00

Document:
PAINT TOWNSHIP, Appellant, v. Robert L. CLARK.
BEFORE: BERNARD L. McGINLEY, Judge, and PATRICIA A. McCULLOUGH, Judge, and ROCHELLE S. FRIEDMAN, Senior Judge. William E. Hager, III, and Stephanie R. Hager, New Bethlehem, for appellant. Robert L. Clark, pro se. Craig J. Staudenmaier, Harrisburg, for amicus curiae Pennsylvania Freedom of Information Coalition.
In this Right–to–Know Law (RTKL)2 case, Paint Township (Township) appeals from the October 21, 2013 order of the Court of Common Pleas of Clarion County (trial court) directing the Township to retrieve data from the then publicly-funded cell phone of Randy Vossburg, the chairman of the Township's Board of Supervisors (Supervisor Vossburg), and provide the retrieved records to Robert L. Clark (Requester). The trial court also ordered the Township to provide Requester with phone records concerning Township business after Supervisor Vossburg's publicly-funded cell phone number was privatized and paid for in part by the Township. We affirm in part and vacate and remand in part.
[The] Township's cell phone contract with Verizon Wireless including any service or equipment changes to the contract.
The name of the Township official or employee authorizing each contract change.
Detailed phone bills for Township cell phones including the date, time, source, destination and duration (or size) of all incoming or outgoing voice, text, picture, and video messages.
The content of all incoming or outgoing text, picture, or video messages.
The content of application related data stored on the cell phone or available from Verizon Wireless, including browser history, address books, and Internet connection logs for the phone assigned [to Supervisor Vossburg].
The Township's open records officer, Jacqui Blose (Blose), responded on December 3, 2012, and requested a thirty-day extension. Blose did not respond within the thirty-day period, and Requester's request was deemed denied. Requester then appealed the denial to the Office of Open Records (OOR).
1. [The] Township shall not sell or dispose of any of its cell phones until [the] court enters a final Order in this appeal.
a. The Township's cell phone contract with Verizon Wireless including any service or equipment changes to the contract.
b. The name of the Township official or employee authorizing each contract change.
c. Detailed phone bills for Township cell phones including the date, time, source, destination and duration of all incoming and outgoing voice, text, picture, and video messages and, except for communications between the Supervisors themselves, the Township shall redact all information which identifies the other parties and their phone numbers.
d. The content of all incoming and outgoing text, picture, or video messages which relate to the business of the Township. The Township is not required to provide the content of communications which do not relate to Township business.
e. The content of all application related data stored on the cell phone or available from Verizon Wireless, including browser history, address books, and internet connection logs for the phone assigned [to Supervisor Vossburg], except the Township shall redact any information that would identify other parties.
If the Township cannot obtain records, it shall file an appropriate affidavit or otherwise comply with [the] requirements of the [RTKL].
․ [W]e did ask [Supervisor] Vossburg as to whether any records were contained on that phone, and he stated to the Township at the meeting, when we discussed selling the phone, that the phone had been reset and all the—had been reset to the factory settings and all applicable records had been deleted from the phone prior to him turning it back over to the Township, because we were concerned that—there are certain duties that the Township has to protect the privacy of others under the Open Records Act and other things, payroll, personnel, health records, things like that and we were concerned that if we disposed of the phone, we may also dispose of their records.
2. Provide redacted phone records for [Supervisor Vossburg's phone number] after the time the number was transferred to [him privately], but only for calls among the Supervisors dealing with Township business.
The parties must follow the [RTKL] and any applicable regulations regarding release of the information and assessment and payment of the costs.
(R.R. at 342a) (emphasis added).
In its accompanying opinion, the trial court found, in pertinent part, that the Township did not act in bad faith because the affidavits from a Verizon Wireless agent confirm that Verizon Wireless possessed no data, files, or information for Supervisor Vossburg's publicly-funded cell phone and that substantive data, such as message, picture, or video content, is erased after three to five business days. (R.R. at 334a–37a.) Further, after recounting Blose's testimony that the publicly-funded cell phone was deleted and reset, the trial court determined that “the Township reasonably believed the cell phone contained no data or information which could be provided pursuant to the court's [o]rder. The Township did not willfully violate the [o]rder or act in bad faith.” (R.R. at 338a) (emphasis added).
However, that does not mean [that Requester] cannot access the phone itself if he wishes. The [o]rder calls for the content of all application related data stored on the cell phone. That [o]rder must be complied with even if it means opening up the safe in the Township office and using a program or other technical device to remove the data from the cellphone itself.
Just because something is deleted on a cellular phone does not mean it actually is permanently gone, and it is most certainly true that absent a professional deletion by a digital forensic analyst, there is still data on the phone.
There are two ways to address this issue of the cell phone's reset data, that is, the issue of whether or not a record exists. The first is that the only conclusive proof regarding the contents of the cell phone is the testimony of [Blose] that the phone has been “reset.” No technical information was provided to the court, nor has her testimony conclusively demonstrated that information has actually been cleared. [Blose] has not seen the phone. Only Supervisor Vossburg handled the phone. It is true that [Blose] testified under oath about the contents of the phone, but that testimony only covered what [Supervisor Vossburg] told her was deleted. The court does not mean to question [Blose's] motivations and believes she testified truthfully about what the Supervisor told her. However, such testimony is unconvincing when it does not receive support from other sources.
A better argument is that while the data has been deleted, such information has not disappeared and must reside on the phone in some form. Computer forensics is a cottage industry in the United States. A basic tenant [sic ] of that industry is that deleted, or in our case “reset,” information is not actually deleted. Retrieving deleted information takes little time.
At the time of the request in the present case, these items were under the control of an individual currently serving as a Supervisor for [the] Township. There is no arguing that this was indeed a private line ․ or that the record request treads on a private citizen's affairs. Those factors should not be used as a means of bypassing the [RTKL]. People in positions of public power cannot hide from constituents by simply ‘privatizing’ their communications. In the instant case too, it can hardly be said that these requests amount to unjustifiable intrusions.
[Supervisor Vossburg] receives a $39.00 weekly allowance by the Township for the purposes of paying his phone bill. This information comes directly from the September 10, 2012 meeting minutes․ This action took place ten days after the Township ‘privatized’ the line․ While the Supervisor may wish to hide behind his status as a private citizen, he cannot divorce himself from his responsibilities and duties as a Township supervisor. This is not just a private citizen. Nor is it a former public official. This is an elected official who receives pecuniary benefits while holding office and serving the people of the Township. As such, he must be held responsible as a public figure under the [RTKL].
On appeal to this Court,5 the Township argues that the trial court erred: (1) in directing the disclosure of metadata; (2) in requiring it to retrieve information from the publicly-funded cell phone when the evidence established that any such records do not currently exist; and, (3) in compelling the production of cell phone records when the line was privatized in Supervisor Vossburg's name.
The Township argues that the trial court erred in directing disclosure of metadata when Requester did not specifically request metadata. Under the facts and circumstances of this case, we find this argument to be a misnomer. While the trial court in its original opinion found that any request for metadata was outside the scope of the request, (R.R. at 339a), the trial court in its subsequent Pa.R.A.P.1925(a) opinion apparently used the terms “data” and “metadata” interchangeably—and perhaps inadvertently—on a few occasions, or, at the very least, expressed confusion as to whether it was actually ordering the disclosure of metadata. Nonetheless, the trial court ordered the Township to “[r]etrieve the data from [the] cell phone ․ and provide the records to ‘Requester.’ “ (R.R. at 342a, emphasis added). Accordingly, the real issue in this case is whether the trial court erred in ordering the retrieval of “data” in an attempt to re-create the “deleted” or “reset” information that Requester clearly requested (i.e., voice, text, picture, and video messages, and browser history, address books, and internet connection logs), regardless of whether the “data” in the cell phone is dubbed data fragments, metadata, application-related data, or some other technical term.
In any event, we note that metadata is inseparable from Electronic Stored Information (ESI), and, being a conjoined part of ESI documents, metadata must be disclosed along with an ESI document. See O'Neill v. City of Shoreline, 240 P.3d 1149, 1153 (Wash.2010) (concluding that “metadata in an electronic document is part of the underlying document [and] does not stand on its own.”); Lake v. City of Phoenix, 218 P.3d 1004, 1007 n. 5 (Ariz.2009) (explaining that “inherent or application metadata ․ is ․ embedded in the file it describes and moves with the file when it is moved or copied.”); id. at 1008 (“[T]he metadata forms part of the document as much as the words on the page.”). However, as explained more fully below, the record demonstrates that all ESI has been deleted. Consequently, any substantive discussion of metadata on a conceptual level would be irrelevant, because the main issue in this case concerns the retrieval of deleted ESI or deleted data. See In re Justice, (No. 1:11–mc–3, E.D. Tenn.2012, filed June 25, 2012) (unreported), slip op. at 22 (“[The expert witness] confuses metadata with data retained on a computer's hard drive even if the document is deleted․ [M]etadata is simply a non-issue in this case.”).
The Township argues that the trial court erred in requiring it to retrieve or re-create a record that does not currently exist, noting that “[a] forensic search of the cell phone device is beyond the abilities of the Township employees and its counsel to extract any existing data ․ and create a document of the transactions, all of which would require specialized expertise, software and/or tools.” (Township's brief at 23.) We agree.
[The requester's] sole argument on appeal is that the Department's statement that a judgment of sentence does not currently exist leads him to believe that such a record must have existed at some time and, therefore, either the Department or the OOR has a duty to produce the record under the RTKL. However, [the requester] misinterprets the statutory language, specifically, the use of the word “currently” as used in [s]ection 705 of the RTKL, stating that “an agency shall not be required to create a record which does not currently exist.” 65 P.S. § 67.705. Under this provision, whether or not a judgment of sentence existed at some point in time is not the proper standard—the standard is whether such a record is in existence and in possession of the Commonwealth agency at the time of the right-to-know request. The Department searched its records and submitted both sworn and unsworn affidavits that it was not in possession of [the requester's] judgment of sentence—that such a record does not currently exist. These statements are enough to satisfy the Department's burden of demonstrating the non-existence of the record in question, and obviously the Department cannot grant access to a record that does not exist. Because under the current RTKL the Department cannot be made to create a record which does not exist, the OOR properly denied [the requester's] appeal.
Id. at 909 (italics in original) (bold font supplied).
In Department of Environmental Protection v. Cole, 52 A.3d 541 (Pa.Cmwlth.2012), the requester sought, among other things, specific information from the Department of Environmental Protection (Department) related to a rebate program. Although admitting that it had the requested information, the Department argued that it cannot be compelled to search through a computer database because this would constitute creating a record that does not exist. On appeal, this Court concluded that when requested information exists in a database, it must be provided, with certain conditions, to the requester. We explained that “[a]n agency need only provide the information in the manner in which it currently exists” and ordered the Department to provide the requester with the information in the computer database, “but only in the format in which it is available.” 52 A.3d at 547–58 (emphasis added). This Court further noted that the Department does not have to assemble the information into a new format and that “the information contained in databases ․ must simply be provided to requestors in the same format that would be available to agency personnel.” Id. at 549 & n. 12 (emphasis added).
[T]hat a requester suggests a format or provides examples of the records sought in a certain format does not mean that a requester seeks special compilation. Requesters may provide suggestions or examples in order to better inform an agency about the information requested, and we have no desire to discourage that practice. In this case, [r]equester advised that the formats were suggested rather than required. Requester thus placed the Commission on notice of his preferences—no more, no less.
Providing data from an agency database does not constitute creating a record. This Court holds that information contained in a database must be accessible to requesters and provided in a format available to the agency. To the extent that the data exists in some format, the Commission must provide it. See 65 P.S. § 67.305 (any record in possession of an agency is public unless exempt, as proven by the agency). Accordingly, the Commission must disclose data responsive to the [request] in any format in which the information exists.
Id., slip op. at 16.
Here, Requester did not submit his request until November 28, 2012. Through Blose's affidavit and testimony, the Township has established that there were no ESI documents on the phone at the time of Requester's request, and Verizon Wireless stated in an affidavit that it has no data-related records for the cell phone after August 30, 2012. Besides demonstrating that the data/information on the cell phone is not available, the record supports the Township's assertions that the requested information does not currently exist in any ascertainable format.
In the absence of bad faith, Blose's attested contentions in her affidavit regarding the non-existence of data on the phone and assertion that Verizon Wireless has already verified that application-related data does not exist on the phone should be sufficient. See Office of the Governor v. Scolforo, 65 A.3d 1095, 1103 (Pa.Cmwlth.2013) (en banc ) (“Absent evidence of bad faith, the veracity of an agency's submissions explaining reasons for nondisclosure should not be questioned.”); (Trial court op. at 3) (“The court does not mean to question [Blose's] motivations and believes she testified truthfully․”). Under prevailing case law, this evidence, in and of itself, is more than sufficient to establish that the records do not currently exist, much less in their original form. See Moore, 992 A.2d at 909.
Despite Verizon Wireless' representation that the information/data ceased to exist months before Requester's request, the trial court apparently found that the publicly-funded cell phone was “reset,” but expressed reservations that all the data had been “deleted,” because Blose relied on and relayed the representations of Supervisor Vossburg that all information/data had been cleared and the phone deactivated. (Trial court op. at 2–3.) However, Blose's reliance on and conveyance of Supervisor Vossburg's statements does not render her testimony or Supervisor Vossburg's statements incompetent because Supervisor Vossburg had personal knowledge of the facts forming his statements. See Kay v. FCC, 976 F.Supp. 23, 34 n. 29 (D.D.C.1997) (concluding that affidavits accounting for searches of documents that contain hearsay are acceptable where the second-hand statements are based upon personal knowledge).
Notably, the trial court did not explicitly find that all the data had not been “deleted,” and, instead, assumed that “while the data has been deleted, such information has not disappeared and must reside on the phone in some form.” (Trial court op. at 3) (“Computer forensics is a cottage industry in the United States. A basic tenant [sic ] of the industry is that deleted, or in our case ‘reset’ information is not actually deleted. Retrieving information takes little time”)). While this may be a scientific possibility, the trial court recognized that the Township would be required to engage the assistance of a forensics expert to retrieve the deleted data.
Moreover, the trial court's determination that the information on the phone is retrievable is unsustainable as a factual finding. Significantly, Requester did not counter the Township's evidence, and there is no competent or admissible evidence of record to support a finding that the “reset” or “deleted” information/data is recoverable, still “exists” in some form, or can be formatted or organized in the same manner in which it originally existed and was maintained. There is a dramatic difference between drawing information known to exist from a computer database in a “format available to the agency,” Gingrich, slip op. at 16, and where, as here, it has been established that the information does not exist in any ascertainable format.
In accordance with Moore and Cole, and the trial court's finding, the Township has established the current non-existence of the requested information under section 705 of the RTKL. Hence, the only possible way to retrieve the information, as noted by the trial court, is through forensic analysis. The Township has already noted to the trial court that this would require the hiring of a specialist to attempt to re-create a record which does not exist, and the Township “cannot be made to create a record which does not exist.” 992 A.2d at 909.
Nonetheless, the trial court expresses its belief that if the Township performs technical, forensic analysis of the publicly-funded cell phone, it may be able to retrieve residual fragments of information/data that could possibly lead to the existence—and ultimately the recovery and re-creation—of responsive documents. However, such a possibility is not supported by the record, and it clearly constitutes the creation of a record that is not currently in existence. Absent supporting evidence, the trial court's presumption that the records have maintained a metaphysical existence in the form of so-called data is not adequate to support a conclusion that the requested records currently exist in “the same format ․ available to agency personnel.” Cole, 52 A.3d at 549 & n. 12. Whatever it is called, the information believed to still reside within the phone—or, presumably, the bits of scattered and not readily-decipherable data and electrical impulses on a computer chip—was never shown to be a record of the Township, and the trial court erred in presuming otherwise.
Moreover, it is noteworthy that, at least two months prior to his request, Requester attended the Township's September 12, 2012 meeting and the record indicates that he was placed on notice that the data/information on the cell phone may be deleted and the phone sold in the then-immediate future. (R.R. at 265a, 268a.) The record does not contradict that Supervisor Vossburg cleared all of the information/data because the Board of Supervisors terminated the contract with Verizon Wireless, intended to sell the phone to an outside party, and was concerned with the confidential health and personal information stored on the phone regarding the Township's employees. Supervisor Vossburg's actions in deleting the phone's contents and resetting the phone to factory settings appear consistent with the Township's dispositional directive. See section 507 of the RTKL, 65 P.S. § 67.507 (stating that “[n]othing in [the RTKL] shall be construed to modify, rescind or supersede any record retention policy or disposition schedule of an agency established pursuant to law, regulation, policy or other directive.”); P.G. Publishing Company, Inc. v. Governor's Office of Administration, (Pa.Cmwlth., No. 481 M.D.2014, filed October 31, 2014) (single-judge unreported opinion by Pellegrini, P.J.), slip op. at 12 (concluding that agency did not have a duty under the RTKL to retain records because the agency's record retention and disposition policy was “specifically preserved under Section 507 of the RTKL.”).6 Requester does not contend that Supervisor Vossburg's deletion of the data/information on the phone was done in bad faith, in anticipation of disclosure under the RTKL, in violation of the Township's record retention policy/directive, or unreasonable.
For these reasons, we vacate the portion of the trial court's order directing the Township to “[r]etrieve the data from the cell phone that is being held by the Township and ․ provide the records to [Requester],” (R.R. at 342a), because the evidence demonstrates that such records do not currently exist. Out of respect for the trial court's apparent concern that Supervisor Vossburg may not have properly “deleted” the information/data on the publicly-funded cell phone, we remand the matter to the trial court for further proceedings of a limited nature. On remand, a Township employee and/or Supervisor Vossburg (not an Information Systems Technician) shall inspect the phone again and file sworn affidavit(s), detailing his/her/their search of the apps, folders, and/or browser history and discussing whether there is readily available or discernable ESI or information/data on the phone. The trial court shall assess the affidavit(s) and determine whether the information/data on the publicly-funded cell phone has been deleted from the phone as a matter of fact.
The Township contends that records related to Supervisor Vossburg's privatized cell phone cannot be disclosed because he purchased the phone himself and it is his personal phone number. We disagree.
As noted by the trial court in its Pa.R.A.P.1925(a) opinion, our decision in Barkeyville refutes the Township's argument. In that case, the requesters sought, among other things, e-mails between borough council members. The borough contended that this information was contained on the council members' personal computers, and, consequently, was not in the possession, custody, or control of the borough. On appeal, this Court in Barkeyville disagreed, noting that the requested information was between council members and discussed borough business. We further noted that the council members were acting in their official capacity as elected officials and that the requested records constituted public records even though the information was located in the council members' personal computers. Accordingly, this Court concluded that the e-mails were public records subject to disclosure.
Accordingly, we affirm in part and vacate in part. We remand the matter back to the trial court to receive additional affidavits as discussed above and render a factual determination consistent with this opinion.
AND NOW, this 5th day of February, 2015, the October 21, 2013 order of the Court of Common Pleas of Clarion County is affirmed in part and vacated in part. The case is remanded to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
2. Act of February 14, 2008, P.L. 6, 65 P.S. §§ 67.101–67.3104.
4. The trial court commented:In re Dorthey Davis [OOR, Docket No.: AP 2011–0800, filed August 10, 2011], is an [OOR] decision from 2011 that discusses the role in which metadata plays in a record request.“Metadata is electronic information which describes the history and characteristics of the electronic records.” Halfway there: Beyond the Basics of Electronic Data Discovery, PBI No.2011–6625; see also The Sedona Conference Glossary: E–Discovery & Digital Information Management (3d ed. Sept.2010); The Sedona Principles: Best Practices Recommendations & Principles for Addressing Electronic Document Productions, cmt 12a (2d ed. June 2007); National Information Standards Organization, Understanding Metadata (NISO Press 2004)․ Metadata is generally not visible when the document is printed—it can be seen when a digital document is viewed in its native format using the program that originally produced the document. Jay E. Grenig & William Geisner III, eDiscovery & Digital Evidence (Oct.2010). At least one federal district court has defined “metadata” as information describing the history, tracking, or management of an electronic document. Williams v. Sprint, 230 F.R.D. 650 (D.Kan.2005). In the context of disputes concerning access to records, some state courts have held that metadata is an integral part an electronic record and subject to disclosure. Lake v. City of Phoenix, 218 P.3d 1004 (Ariz.2009); O'Neill v. City of Shoreline, 170 Wn.2d 138 (Wash.2010); Irwin v. Onandaga County, 895 N.Y.S.2d 262 (N.Y.App.Div.2010).(R.R. at 338a–39a) (quoting In re Dorthey Davis, Final Determination at 4–5).
5. Our scope of review in a RTKL case where the trial court sits as a reviewing court is whether the trial court committed an error of law and whether its findings of fact are supported by substantial evidence. Chester Community Charter School v. Hardy, 38 A.3d 1079, 1082 n. 4 (Pa.Cmwlth.2012).
6. Pursuant to section 414 of the Commonwealth Court's Internal Operating Procedures, a single-judge opinion shall not be cited as binding precedent, but may be cited for its persuasive value. 210 Pa .Code § 69.414; Sears v. Corbett, 49 A.3d 463, 471 n. 6 (Pa.Cmwlth.2012) (en banc ).
OPINION BY Judge McCULLOUGH.1 FN1. This opinion was reassigned to the author on October 29, 2014.

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