Opinion ID: 4537598
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: conclusion

Text: For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the trial court’s finding that the arbitration award is exempt from disclosure under the “internal personnel practices” exemption and remand to the trial court for further proceedings 13 consistent with this opinion. We also deny Seacoast’s request for attorney’s fees. Vacated and remanded. HICKS and BASSETT, JJ., concurred; HANTZ MARCONI, J., concurred in part and dissented in part. HANTZ MARCONI, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part. I agree with my colleagues that the arbitration decision in this case is not a record pertaining to “internal personnel practices,” and, therefore, does not fall under the “internal personnel practices” exemption to the Right-to-Know Law. See RSA 91-A:5, IV (2013). I also agree with my colleagues that this case should be remanded so that the trial court may consider whether, or to what extent, the arbitration decision at issue is exempt from disclosure under the exemption for personnel files. See id. I write separately because I believe that to reach this result, it is unnecessary to consider whether to overrule Union Leader Corp. v. Fenniman, 136 N.H. 624 (1993). I believe that, as a matter of law, the arbitration decision at issue does not fall within the “internal personnel practices” exemption to the Right-to-Know Law as interpreted in Fenniman. Thus, I concur in the result my colleagues reach, but write separately because I disagree with their reasoning. To the extent that my colleagues have overruled Fenniman, I dissent for the reasons set forth in my dissent in Union Leader Corp. v. Town of Salem, 173 N.H. ___, ___ (decided May 29, 2020) (Hantz Marconi, J., dissenting) (slip op. at 11-16). Fenniman concerned a petition by Union Leader Corporation for access to documents compiled during an internal investigation of a police lieutenant accused of making harassing phone calls. Fenniman, 136 N.H. at 625. The police department released information including the lieutenant’s name and the results of the investigation, but withheld “memoranda and other records compiled during the investigation.” Id. at 625-26. We held that the withheld records pertained to “internal personnel practices” because “they document procedures leading up to internal personnel discipline, a quintessential example of an internal personnel practice.” Id. at 626 (quotation omitted). We also decided that the balancing test we had applied “to judge whether the benefits of nondisclosure outweigh the benefits of disclosure” was “inappropriate where, as here, the legislature has plainly made its own determination that certain documents are categorically exempt” from disclosure under the Right-to-Know Law. Id. at 627. In Fenniman, we noted that, at the same time that the legislature was “overhauling RSA chapter 91-A into its modern form,” it was also “considering passage of what is now RSA 516:36, II,” which provides that records pertaining to internal investigations of “any officer, employee, or agent” of a state or local law enforcement agency are inadmissible in any civil action “other than in a disciplinary action between the agency” and the officer, employee, or agent. Id. 14 at 626; see RSA 516:36, II (2007). We also observed that when considering passage of what is now RSA 516:36, II, the legislature had apparently assumed “that RSA chapter 91-A exempted police internal investigatory files from public disclosure.” Fenniman, 136 N.H. at 627. We next addressed the interplay between RSA 516:36, II and the exemption for “internal personnel practices” under the Right-to-Know Law in Pivero v. Largy, 143 N.H. 187 (1998). In that case, a police officer sought a copy of an internal investigative file that related to him. Pivero, 143 N.H. at 188. To decide the case, we considered RSA 516:36, II and Fenniman, in addition to other statutes not relevant to the instant matter. Id. at 189-92. We explained that “[u]ntil an internal investigation produces information that results in the initiation of disciplinary process, public policy requires that internal investigation files remain confidential and separate from personnel files.” Id. at 191 (citations omitted). We further explained that “these policy considerations include instilling confidence in the public to report, without fear of reprisal, incidents of police misconduct to internal affairs” as well as the need not to “seriously hinder an ongoing investigation or future law enforcement efforts.” Id. Fenniman focused upon exempting from disclosure records documenting “the procedures leading up to internal personnel discipline.” Fenniman, 136 N.H. at 626. That remained our focus in Hounsell v. North Conway Water Precinct, 154 N.H. 1 (2006). At issue in that case was a report prepared by individuals who had been retained by counsel for the North Conway Water Precinct (Precinct) to investigate an employee’s complaint of co-worker harassment. Hounsell, 154 N.H. at 2. The report summarized the investigation and made findings and recommendations. Id. We upheld the trial court’s determination that the report was exempt from disclosure under the Right-to-Know Law because, similar to the documents in Fenniman, the report concerned an investigation that “could have resulted in disciplinary action.” Id. at 4. Although we recognized that the report was not part of an internal police investigation, such as the report in Fenniman, we explained that its disclosure would implicate “policy concerns similar to those underlying the disclosure of an internal police investigatory file.” Id. at 5 (quotation omitted). As the Precinct in Hounsell had argued, “the disclosure of records underlying, or arising from, internal personnel investigations would deter the reporting of misconduct by public employees, or participation in such investigations for fear of public embarrassment, humiliation, or even retaliation.” Id. In Clay, we expanded Fenniman to address records documenting procedures leading to an employer’s hiring decision, but did not disturb Fenniman’s central holding or the policy concerns underlying it. Clay v. City of Dover, 169 N.H. 681 (2017). Although we had previously criticized Fenniman, see Reid v. N.H. Attorney General, 169 N.H. 509, 519-22 (2016), in Clay we confirmed that it remained good law. Clay, 169 N.H. at 687. 15 The arbitration decision at issue in the instant matter does not meet the Fenniman definition of records pertaining to “internal personnel practices.” Unlike the records in Fenniman and Hounsell, the arbitration decision was rendered after internal discipline had already been meted out. The police officer in this case was terminated from employment in 2015; the arbitration decision was not issued until 2018. Accordingly, the arbitration decision, unlike the records in Fenniman and Hounsell, does not document procedures “leading up to internal personnel discipline,” Fenniman, 136 N.H. at 626, but rather constitutes the review of the discipline after it was imposed. Moreover, disclosure of the arbitration decision in this case does not implicate the same policy concerns underlying our decision in Fenniman. See Pivero, 143 N.H. at 191; Hounsell, 154 N.H. at 5. Rather, disclosure of the arbitration decision implicates different policy considerations because it is part of an employee grievance proceeding, considerations that may be more appropriately addressed under the exemption for personnel files. Because I believe that the arbitration decision does not fall within the “internal personnel practices” exemption, as construed in Fenniman and its progeny, I see no reason to consider, in this case, whether to overrule that line of cases. Nor do I believe, for the reasons set forth in my dissent in Union Leader Corp. v. Town of Salem, that our established stare decisis factors compel overruling Fenniman and its progeny. See Union Leader Corp., 173 N.H. at ____ (Hantz Marconi, J., dissenting) (slip op. at 11-16). Although I would not overrule Fenniman in this case, to the extent that the Fenniman definition of “internal personnel practices” has been overruled and a new, narrower definition has been adopted, I agree with my colleagues that the arbitration decision at issue fails to meet that new definition as a matter of law. Like my colleagues, I would remand for the trial court to consider, in the first instance, whether the arbitration decision is exempt from disclosure pursuant to the two-part analysis for personnel files. See Reid, 169 N.H. at 527-33. 16