Opinion ID: 2211455
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Personal Nature of the Information

Text: The text of the statute at issue reveals little about the Legislature's intended scope when it provided an exemption for information of a personal nature. From this Court's numerous attempts to fashion a workable formulation for determining on a case-by-case basis whether requested information is personal within the Legislature's contemplation, the following standard has emerged: [W]e conclude that information is of a personal nature if it reveals intimate or embarrassing details of an individual's private life. We evaluate this standard in terms of `the customs, mores, or ordinary views of the community....' [ Mager, supra at 142, 595 N.W.2d 142, quoting Bradley, supra at 294, 565 N.W.2d 650 (emphasis added).] Applying this standard in Bradley, we determined that personnel records of public school teachers and administrators were not of a personal nature: Significantly, none of the documents contain information of an embarrassing, intimate, private, or confidential nature, such as medical records or information relating to the plaintiffs' private lives. Moreover, the appellants have not alleged specific private matters that would be revealed by the disclosure of their personnel records. Instead, the requested information consists solely of performance appraisals, disciplinary actions, and complaints relating to the plaintiffs' accomplishments in their public jobs. Because the requested information does not disclose intimate or embarrassing details of the plaintiffs' private lives, we hold that the requested records do not satisfy the personal-nature element of the privacy exemption. [ Id. at 295, 565 N.W.2d 650.] More recently, in Mager, supra, we applied this same standard and reached the opposite conclusion because of the nature of the request at issue there. In Mager, the plaintiff requested that the State Police provide the names and addresses of persons who owned registered handguns. In determining that the fact of gun ownership was information of a personal nature, we noted that [t]he ownership and use of firearms is a controversial subject, and that [a] citizen's decision to purchase and maintain firearms is a personal decision of considerable importance. Id. at 143, 595 N.W.2d 142. Accordingly, we held that gun ownership is an intimate or, for some persons, potentially embarrassing detail of one's personal life. Id. at 144, 595 N.W.2d 142. In contrast to the fact of gun ownership, whichassessing the customs, mores or ordinary views of the communitycertainly may be viewed as an intimate and potentially embarrassing aspect of one's private life, we conclude that the fact of application for a public job, or the typical background information one may disclose with such an application, is simply not personal within the contemplation of this exemption. Given the public nature of the position at issue, we think it difficult to conclude that the customs, mores, and views of the community contemplate that an application for such a position could be made without expectation of considerable public scrutiny. Certainly, defendants have failed to establish on this record why any of the information requested by plaintiff is the kind of intimate or embarrassing information that this FOIA exception protects. Importantly, even if the requested information was contained in public documents that also referenced embarrassing or intimate personal information (for example, medical data), the FOIA imposes on the city a duty to separate the exempt and nonexempt material and make the nonexempt material available for examination and copying. MCL 15.244(1); MSA 4.1801(14)(1); see also Evening News Ass'n v. City of Troy, 417 Mich. 481, 503, 339 N.W.2d 421 (1983).