Opinion ID: 2829245
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Exception to Mandatory Disclosure of Public Information Under

Text: Section 552.101 of the PIA Section 552.101 of the PIA states that public information is excepted from the broad disclosure “requirements of Section 552.021 if it is information considered to be confidential . . . by judicial decision.” Relying on the opinion in Industrial Foundation , the Comptroller argues that the release of birth date information would violate the tort of intrusion upon seclusion. Therefore, she argues, such information has been considered to be confidential by the judicial decision in Billings v. Atkinson and is excepted from disclosure by section 552.101. This Court’s only interpretation of section 552.101 was the subject of a fractured opinion (a three justice plurality, two separate concurrences, and a four justice dissent) in Industrial Foundation of the South v. Texas Industrial Accident Board. , 540 S.W.2d 668, 675 (Tex. 1976). Despite the various views of the Industrial Foundation Court, there was unanimity on the proposition that the PIA does not give courts the discretion to secret certain information from the public by creating new categories of confidential information not protected by the terms of the PIA. In Industrial Foundation , the petitioners argued that the Legislature intended section 552.101 “to delegate to the courts a duty to determine what information should be excepted from disclosure as confidential by balancing in each case the interest in privacy against the interest in disclosure, thus creating a common-law privacy doctrine which would except the information involved ‘by judicial decision.’” Indus. Found. , 540 S.W.2d at 681 . The Court rejected that argument: We do not believe that a court is free to balance the public’s interest in disclosure against the harm resulting to an individual by reason of such disclosure. This policy determination was made by the Legislature when it enacted the statute. “All information collected, assembled, or maintained by governmental bodies” is subject to disclosure unless specifically excepted . We decline to adopt an interpretation which would allow the court in its discretion to deny disclosure even though there is no specific exception provided. Id . at 681–82; see also id . at 691–92 ( Reavley , J., dissenting, joined by Steakley , Pope, and Denton, JJ.) (“I agree with everything in the opinion of the majority except what is written to support the holding that information on the nature of the injury. . . may be ‘deemed confidential’ . . . . It was not the intention of the Legislature to turn over the administration of the Open Records Act to the judiciary.”). In other words, courts do not have the discretion to classify information as confidential on an ad hoc basis; confidentiality of public information is to be determined by the terms of the Act. To sanction the creation by courts of new types of protected information not identified in the PIA would open the way for judicial amendment of the PIA. Accordingly, I would interpret section 552.101 to deem confidential information that was held by judicial decision to be confidential at or before the time of the provision. This approach would leave policy-making to the Legislature. It would also provide certainty in the definition of confidential information so that governmental entities and public officials may act accordingly. If courts decided which public information is considered to be confidential on an ad hoc basis, according to what individual jurists believe to be good policy, a court could decide to make birth date information confidential under the PIA in order to further the policy goal of preventing identity theft. An immediate consequence of this might be the attachment of criminal penalties for the disclosure, apparently even if unintended, of birth date information. See note 10 . Government officials may be forced to redact all birth date information disclosed to the public or face criminal penalties, even in records that are decades old and currently made available to the public in, for example, all the state courthouses in the two hundred fifty-four counties around the state. 1 2 By limiting these determinations to information that has already been considered confidential, such as information the disclosure of which would violate the public disclosure tort, legislators can enact policy in a careful, deliberate manner, often preventing the substantial practical problems that may accompany judicial overstepping. A majority of the court in Industrial Foundation looked to the Court’s decision in Billings v. Atkinson , which recognized the tort of public disclosure of private facts, in order to determine whether the information at issue had been considered to be “confidential.” “We recognized in Billings . . . that an individual has the right to be free from ‘the publicizing of one’s private affairs with which the public has no legitimate concern . . . .’” Indus. Found. , 540 S.W.2d at 682 . The Court interpreted “confidential” according to its common dictionary definition—“‘known only to a limited few: not publicly disseminated: PRIVATE, SECRET.’” Id . at 683. The majority reasoned that the characteristics of the dictionary definition of confidential are “precisely the characteristics which information protected by this branch of the tort invasion of privacy must have. And, we believe that it is this type of information which the Legislature intended to exempt from mandatory disclosure . . . .” Id . Billings explained that certain information is protected by the tort of public disclosure. The majority opinion in Industrial Foundation held that the Legislature intended to protect this same information from disclosure under the PIA by excepting it as confidential (or private) by the judicial decision in Billings . Thus, “if a governmental unit’s action in making its records available to the general public would be an invasion of an individual’s freedom from the publicizing of his private affairs, then the information in those records should be deemed confidential by judicial decision.” Id . Reasonable minds may differ today as to the meaning of the phrase “information considered to be confidential . . . by judicial decision.” 1 3 But the Legislature has not amended this section of the PIA in the thirty-seven years since that decision, and Industrial Foundation is still our sole authority on the meaning of section 552.101. Tex. Gov’t Code § 552.101; see Acts June 14, 1973, 63rd Leg., R.S., ch . 424, § 3, 1973 Tex. Gen. Laws 1112, 1113. Respecting the Legislature’s prerogative and the precedential value of the opinion in Industrial Foundation , I would not extend it to create unintended exceptions under the PIA.