Source: https://1lawyers.org/city-of-san-jose-v-the-superior-court-of-santa-clara-county-ted-smith/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 17:16:09+00:00

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CITY OF SAN JOSE et al., Petitioners, v. THE SUPERIOR COURT OF SANTA, CLARA COUNTY, Respondent; TED SMITH, Real Party in Interest.
In June 2009, petitioner Ted Smith requested disclosure of 32 categories of public records from the City of San Jose, its redevelopment agency and the agency’s executive director, along with certain other elected officials and their staffs.2 The targeted documents concerned redevelopment efforts in downtown San Jose and included emails and text messages “sent or received on private electronic devices used by” the mayor, two city council members, and their staffs. The City disclosed communications made using City telephone numbers and email accounts but did not disclose communications made using the individuals’ personal accounts.
Smith sued for declaratory relief, arguing CPRA’s definition of “public records” encompasses all communications about official business, regardless of how they are created, communicated, or stored. The City responded that messages communicated through personal accounts are not public records because they are not within the public entity’s custody or control. The trial court granted summary judgment for Smith and ordered disclosure, but the Court of Appeal issued a writ of mandate. At present, no documents from employees’ personal accounts have been collected or disclosed.
This case concerns how laws, originally designed to cover paper documents, apply to evolving methods of electronic communication. It requires recognition that, in today’s environment, not all employment-related activity occurs during a conventional workday, or in an employer-maintained workplace.
CPRA and the Constitution strike a careful balance between public access and personal privacy. This case concerns how that balance is served when documents concerning official business are created or stored outside the workplace. The issue is a narrow one: Are writings concerning the conduct of public business beyond CPRA’s reach merely because they were sent or received using a nongovernmental account? Considering the statute’s language and the important policy interests it serves, the answer is no. Employees’ communications about official agency business may be subject to CPRA regardless of the type of account used in their preparation or transmission.
We begin with the term “public record,” which CPRA defines to include “any writing containing information relating to the conduct of the public’s business prepared, owned, used, or retained by any state or local agency regardless of physical form or characteristics.” (§ 6252, subd. (e); hereafter “public records” definition.) Under this definition, a public record has four aspects. It is (1) a writing, (2) with content relating to the conduct of the public’s business, which is (3) prepared by, or (4) owned, used, or retained by any state or local agency.
CPRA defines a “writing” as “any handwriting, typewriting, printing, photostating, photographing, photocopying, transmitting by electronic mail or facsimile, and every other means of recording upon any tangible thing any form of communication or representation, including letters, words, pictures, sounds, or symbols, or combinations thereof, and any record thereby created, regardless of the manner in which the record has been stored.” (§ 6252, subd. (g).) It is undisputed that the items at issue here constitute writings.
In 1968, creating a “writing” could be a fairly involved process. Typically, a person would use an implement to type, or record words longhand, or would dictate to someone else who would write or type a document. Writings were generally made on paper or some other tangible medium. These writings were physically identifiable and could be retrieved by examining the physical repositories where they were stored. Writings exchanged with people outside the agency were generally sent, on paper, through the mail or by courier. In part because of the time required for their preparation, such writings were fairly formal and focused on the business at hand.
Today, these tangible, if laborious, writing methods have been enhanced by electronic communication. Email, text messaging, and other electronic platforms, permit writings to be prepared, exchanged, and stored more quickly and easily. However, the ease and immediacy of electronic communication has encouraged a commonplace tendency to share fleeting thoughts and random bits of information, with varying degrees of import, often to broad audiences. As a result, the line between an official communication and an electronic aside is now sometimes blurred. The second aspect of CPRA’s “public records” definition establishes a framework to distinguish between work-related and purely private communications.
Whether a writing is sufficiently related to public business will not always be clear. For example, depending on the context, an email to a spouse complaining “my coworker is an idiot” would likely not be a public record. Conversely, an email to a superior reporting the coworker’s mismanagement of an agency project might well be. Resolution of the question, particularly when writings are kept in personal accounts, will often involve an examination of several factors, including the content itself; the context in, or purpose for which, it was written; the audience to whom it was directed; and whether the writing was prepared by an employee acting or purporting to act within the scope of his or her employment. Here, the City claimed all communications in personal accounts are beyond the reach of CPRA. As a result, the content of specific records is not before us. Any disputes over this aspect of the “public records” definition await resolution in future proceedings.
The City focuses its challenge on the final portion of the “public records” definition, which requires that writings be “prepared, owned, used, or retained by any state or local agency.” (§ 6252, section (e).) The City argues this language does not encompass communications agency employees make through their personal accounts. However, the broad construction mandated by the Constitution supports disclosure.
The City draws its conclusion by comparing the Act’s definitions of “local” and “state” agency. Under CPRA, “ ‘Local agency’ includes a county; city, whether general law or chartered; city and county; school district; municipal corporation; district; political subdivision; or any board, commission or agency thereof; other local public agency; or entities that are legislative bodies of a local agency pursuant to subdivisions (c) and (d) of Section 54952.” (§ 6252, subd. (a), italics added.) The City points out that this definition does not specifically include individual government officials or staff members, whereas individuals are specifically mentioned in CPRA’s definition of “state agency.” According to that definition, “ ‘State agency’ means every state office, officer, department, division, bureau, board, and commission or other state body or agency, except those agencies provided for in Article IV (except Section 20 thereof) or Article VI of the California Constitution.”5 (§ 6252, subd. (f)(1), italics added.) The City contends this difference shows the Legislature intended to exclude individuals from the local agency definition. If a local agency does not encompass individual officers and employees, it argues, only writings accessible to the agency as a whole are public records. This interpretation is flawed for a number of reasons.
The City’s narrow reading of CPRA’s local agency definition is inconsistent with the constitutional directive of broad interpretation. (Cal. Const., art. I, § 3, subd. (b)(2); see Sierra Club v. Superior Court, supra, 57 Cal.4th at p. 175.) Broadly construed, the term “local agency” logically includes not just the discrete governmental entities listed in section 6252, subdivision (a) but also the individual officials and staff members who conduct the agencies’ affairs. It is well established that a governmental entity, like a corporation, can act only through its individual officers and employees. (Suezaki v. Superior Court (1962) 58 Cal.2d 166, 174; Alvarez v. Felker Mfg. Co. (1964) 230 Cal.App.2d 987, 998; see United States v. Dotterweich (1943) 320 U.S. 277, 281; Reno v. Baird (1998) 18 Cal.4th 640, 656.) A disembodied governmental agency cannot prepare, own, use, or retain any record. Only the human beings who serve in agencies can do these things. When employees are conducting agency business, they are working for the agency and on its behalf. (See, e.g., Cal. Assn. of Health Facilities v. Dept. of Health Services (1997) 16 Cal.4th 284, 296-297; cf. Competitive Enterprise Institute v. Office of Science & Technology Policy (D.C. Cir. 2016) 827 F.3d 145, 149 [reaching the same conclusion for federal FOIA requests].). We presume the Legislature was aware of these settled principles. (See People v. Superior Court (Zamudio) (2000) 23 Cal.4th 183, 199.) A writing prepared by a public employee conducting agency business has been “prepared by” the agency within the meaning of section 6252, subdivision (e), even if the writing is prepared using the employee’s personal account.
The City also fails to explain how its proposed requirement that a public record be “accessible to the agency as a whole” could be practically interpreted. Even when documents were stored in filing cabinets or ledgers, many writings would not have been considered accessible to all agency employees, regardless of their level of responsibility or involvement in a particular project.
The City’s position is further undermined by another CPRA provision, which indicates that public records can be held by individual officials and need not belong to an agency as a whole. When it is alleged that public records have been improperly withheld, section 6259, subdivision (a) directs that “the court shall order the officer or person charged with withholding the records” to disclose the records or show cause why they should not be produced. If the court concludes “the public official’s decision to refuse disclosure is not justified,” it can order “the public official to make the record public.” (§ 6259, subd. (b).) If the court finds “that the public official was justified in refusing” disclosure, it must “return the item to the public official without disclosing its content.” (Ibid.) The Legislature’s repeated use of the singular word “official” in section 6259 indicates an awareness that an individual may possess materials that qualify as public records. Moreover, the broad term “public official” encompasses officials in state and local agencies, signifying that CPRA disclosure obligations apply to individuals working in both levels of government.
CPRA encompasses writings prepared by an agency but also writings it owns, uses, or retains, regardless of authorship. Obviously, an agency engaged in the conduct of public business will use and retain a variety of writings related to that business, including those prepared by people outside the agency. These final two factors of the “public records” definition, use and retention, thus reflect the variety of ways an agency can possess writings used to conduct public business.
As to retention, the City argues “public records” include only materials in an agency’s possession or directly accessible to the agency. Citing statutory arguments and cases limiting the duty to obtain and disclose documents possessed by others, the City contends writings held in an employee’s personal account are beyond an agency’s reach and fall outside CPRA. The argument fails.
An agency’s actual or constructive possession of records is relevant in determining whether it has an obligation to search for, collect, and disclose the material requested. (See § 6253, subd. (c).) It is a separate and more fundamental question whether a document located outside an agency’s walls, or servers, is sufficiently “owned, used, or retained” by the agency so as to constitute a public record. (See § 6252, subd. (e).) In construing FOIA, federal courts have remarked that an agency’s public records “do not lose their agency character just because the official who possesses them takes them out the door.” (Competitive Enterprise Institute v. Office of Science and Technology Policy, supra, 827 F.3d at p. 149.) We likewise hold that documents otherwise meeting CPRA’s definition of “public records” do not lose this status because they are located in an employee’s personal account. A writing retained by a public employee conducting agency business has been “retained by” the agency within the meaning of section 6252, subdivision (e), even if the writing is retained in the employee’s personal account.
The City argues various CPRA provisions run counter to this conclusion. First, the City cites section 6270, which provides that a state or local agency may not transfer a public record to a private entity in a manner that prevents the agency “from providing the record directly pursuant to this chapter.” (Italics added.) Taking the italicized language out of context, the City argues that public records are only those an agency is able to access “directly.” But this strained interpretation sets legislative intent on its head. The statute’s clear purpose is to prevent an agency from evading its disclosure duty by transferring custody of a record to a private holder and then arguing the record falls outside CPRA because it is no longer in the agency’s possession. Furthermore, section 6270 does not purport to excuse agencies from obtaining public records in the possession of their own employees. It simply prohibits agencies from attempting to evade CPRA by transferring public records to an intermediary not bound by the Act’s disclosure requirements.
Next, the City relies on section 6253.9, subdivision (a)(1), which states that an agency must make a public record available “in any electronic format in which it holds the information” (italics added), and on section 6253, subdivision (a), which requires that public records be available for inspection “during ․ office hours.” These provisions do not assist the City. They merely address the mechanics of how public records must be disclosed. They do not purport to define or limit what constitutes a public record in the first place. Moreover, to say that only public records “in the possession of the agency” (§ 6253, subd. (c)) must be disclosed begs the question of whether the term “agency” includes individual officers and employees. We have concluded it does.
Under the City’s interpretation of CPRA, a document concerning official business is only a public record if it is located on a government agency’s computer servers or in its offices. Indirect access, through the agency’s employees, is not sufficient in the City’s view. However, we have previously stressed that a document’s status as public or confidential does not turn on the arbitrary circumstance of where the document is located.
In Commission on Peace Officer Standards, supra, 42 Cal.4th at pages 289 to 290, a state agency argued certain employment information was exempt from disclosure under CPRA because it had been placed in confidential personnel files. In considering a Penal Code provision that deems peace officer personnel records confidential, we rejected an interpretation that made confidentiality turn on the type of file in which records are located, finding it “unlikely the Legislature intended to render documents confidential based on their location, rather than their content.” (Commission, at p. 291.) Although we made this observation in analyzing the scope of a CPRA exemption, the same logic applies to the Act’s definition of what constitutes a public record in the first place. We found it unlikely “the Legislature intended that a public agency be able to shield information from public disclosure simply by placing it in” a certain type of file. (Commission, at p. 291.) Likewise, there is no indication the Legislature meant to allow public officials to shield communications about official business simply by directing them through personal accounts. Such an expedient would gut the public’s presumptive right of access (Sander v. State Bar of California, supra, 58 Cal.4th at p. 323), and the constitutional imperative to broadly construe this right (Cal. Const., art. I, § 3, subd. (b)(2)).
In light of these principles, and considering section 6252, subdivision (e) in the context of the Act as a whole (see Smith v. Superior Court (2006) 39 Cal.4th 77, 83), we conclude a city employee’s communications related to the conduct of public business do not cease to be public records just because they were sent or received using a personal account. Sound public policy supports this result.
Both sides cite policy considerations to support their interpretation of the “public records” definition. The City argues the definition reflects a legislative balance between the public’s right of access and individual employees’ privacy rights, and should be interpreted categorically. Smith counters that privacy concerns are properly addressed in the case-specific application of CPRA’s exemptions, not in defining the overall scope of a public record. Smith also contends any privacy intrusion resulting from a search for records in personal accounts can be minimized through procedural safeguards. Smith has the better of these arguments.
It is no answer to say, as did the Court of Appeal, that we must presume public officials conduct official business in the public’s best interest. The Constitution neither creates nor requires such an optimistic presumption. Indeed, the rationale behind the Act is that it is for the public to make that determination, based on information to which it is entitled under the law. Open access to government records is essential to verify that government officials are acting responsibly and held accountable to the public they serve. (CBS, Inc. v. Block (1986) 42 Cal.3d 646, 651.) “Such access permits checks against the arbitrary exercise of official power and secrecy in the political process.” (Ibid.) The whole purpose of CPRA is to ensure transparency in government activities. If public officials could evade the law simply by clicking into a different email account, or communicating through a personal device, sensitive information could routinely evade public scrutiny.
The City also contends the search for public records in employees’ accounts would itself raise privacy concerns. In order to search for responsive documents, the City claims agencies would have to demand the surrender of employees’ electronic devices and passwords to their personal accounts. Such a search would be tantamount to invading employees’ homes and rifling through their filing cabinets, the City argues. It urges no case has extended CPRA so far.
Arguments that privacy interests outweigh the need for disclosure in CPRA cases have typically focused on the sensitive content of the documents involved, rather than the intrusiveness involved in searching for them. (See, e.g., International Federation, supra, 42 Cal.4th 319; Copley Press, Inc. v. Superior Court (2006) 39 Cal.4th 1272.) Assuming the search for responsive documents can also constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy, however, this concern alone does not tip the policy balance in the City’s favor. Searches can be conducted in a manner that respects individual privacy.
The City has not attempted to search for documents located in personal accounts, so the legality of a specific kind of search is not before us. However, the City and some amici curiae do highlight concerns about employee privacy. Some guidance about how to strike the balance between privacy and disclosure may be of assistance.
CPRA does not prescribe specific methods of searching for those documents. Agencies may develop their own internal policies for conducting searches. Some general principles have emerged, however. Once an agency receives a CPRA request, it must “communicate the scope of the information requested to the custodians of its records,” although it need not use the precise language of the request. (Community Youth, supra, 220 Cal.App.4th at p. 1417.) As to requests seeking public records held in employees’ nongovernmental accounts, an agency’s first step should be to communicate the request to the employees in question. The agency may then reasonably rely on these employees to search their own personal files, accounts, and devices for responsive material.
Consistent with the Legislature’s purpose in enacting CPRA, and our constitutional mandate to interpret the Act broadly in favor of public access (Cal. Const., art. I, § 3, subd. (b)(2)), we hold that a city employee’s writings about public business are not excluded from CPRA simply because they have been sent, received, or stored in a personal account.
1. Government Code section 6250 et seq. All statutory references are to the Government Code unless otherwise specified.
4. We recognize that this test departs from the notion that “[o]nly purely personal” communications “totally void of reference to governmental activities” are excluded from CPRA’s definition of public records. (Assem. Statewide Information Policy Com., Final Rep. (Mar. 1970) 1 Assem. J. (1970 Reg. Sess.) appen. p. 9; see San Gabriel Tribune v. Superior Court, supra, 143 Cal.App.3d at p. 774.) While this conception may yield correct results in some circumstances, it may sweep too broadly in others, particularly when applied to electronic communications sent through personal accounts.
7. While admitting it invoked no CPRA exemptions in the proceedings below, the City nevertheless asks us to decide that messages in employees’ personal accounts are universally exempt from disclosure under section 6255. This issue has not been preserved and is beyond the scope of our grant of review. It also appears impossible to decide on this record. Answering threshold questions about whether employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy (see Hill v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn. (1994) 7 Cal.4th 1, 35), or whether their messages are covered by the “deliberative process” privilege (Times Mirror Co. v. Superior Court (1991) 53 Cal.3d 1325, 1339-1344) would require a fact-intensive review of the City’s policies and practices regarding electronic communications, if not the contents of the challenged documents themselves. The record here is insufficient.
WE CONCUR: CANTIL-SAKAUYE, C. J. WERDEGAR, J. CHIN, J. LIU, J. CUÉLLAR, J. KRUGER, J.

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