Opinion ID: 2241272
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Dispatch Calls

Text: The dispatch calls are communications within the Fire Department; the only participants in the calls were Department dispatchers and other Department employees. The tapes and transcripts of these calls are therefore intra-agency materials, and are protected from disclosure by Public Officers Law § 87 (2) (g) unless they fit within one of two exclusions from the intra-agency exception: the exclusions for statistical or factual tabulations or data (§ 87 [2] [g] [i]) and for instructions to staff that affect the public (§ 87 [2] [g] [ii]). We interpreted the first of these exclusions in Matter of Gould v New York City Police Dept. (89 NY2d 267, 277 [1996]), where we said that [f]actual data . . . simply means objective information, in contrast to opinions, ideas, or advice exchanged as part of the consultative or deliberative process of government decision making (citations omitted). Here, Supreme Court and the Appellate Division ordered that the dispatch calls be disclosed to the extent they consist of factual statements or instructions affecting the public, but that they be redacted to eliminate nonfactual material  i.e., opinions and recommendations. This is, in our view, a straightforward and correct application of the statute as we interpreted it in Gould. The parties seeking disclosure argue otherwise, relying on cases in which we have characterized the intra-agency exception as being applicable to `deliberative material,' i.e., communications exchanged for discussion purposes not constituting final policy decisions ( Matter of Russo v Nassau County Community Coll., 81 NY2d 690, 699 [1993], citing Matter of Xerox Corp. v Town of Webster, 65 NY2d 131 [1985]). In Russo and Xerox, however, we were concerned with materials that were arguably not intra-agency at all  in Russo, films shown by a public college to its students, and in Xerox, a report prepared for a public agency by an outside consultant. In deciding that the films were not intra-agency materials, and that the report was, we relied on the facts that the films were not used by the college as part of an internal decision-making process, while the report was used for just that purpose. Neither case implies that materials that fit squarely within the plain meaning of intra-agency  in this case, tapes and transcripts of internal conversations about the agency's work  are not within the scope of the intra-agency exception to FOIL. The parties seeking disclosure also rely on our reference in Gould to the consultative or deliberative process of government decision making (81 NY2d at 277). But we used those words in Gould simply to define the scope of the factual data exclusion from the intra-agency exception; we spoke of objective information, in contrast to exchanges that were part of the consultative or deliberative process. ( Id. ) Gould does not hold, as the parties seeking disclosure seem to suggest, that the intra-agency exception shields from disclosure only formal, lengthy or profound policy discussions. The point of the intra-agency exception is to permit people within an agency to exchange opinions, advice and criticism freely and frankly, without the chilling prospect of public disclosure ( see Xerox, 65 NY2d at 132, citing Matter of Sea Crest Constr. Corp. v Stubing, 82 AD2d 546, 549 [2d Dept 1981]). This purpose applies not only to comments made in official policy meetings and well-considered memorandums, but also to suggestions and criticisms offered with little chance for reflection in moments of crisis. A Fire Department dispatcher who believes that a rescue operation is being badly handled should feel free to say so without the concern that a tape of his or her remarks will be made public.