Opinion ID: 2831597
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Records Relating to the Conduct of Government

Text: Public records must relat[ e] to the conduct of government or the performance of any governmental or proprietary function. RCW 42.56.010(3). This language casts a wide net. In Confederated Tribes, for example, we held that records of money paid by Indian tribes into a common fund related to the conduct of the government even though the records related primarily to tribal gaming operations. 135 Wn.2d at 739-43. Since the state received money from the common fund, we determined tribal contributions impacted state government and therefore records of those contributions were public records. Id. at 748. We adopted a similarly broad interpretation in Oliver v. Harborview Med. Ctr., 94 Wn.2d 559, 618 P.2d 76 (1980), which involved medical records ofpatients hospitalized at a state-owned facility. The records there unquestionably related to individual patients and did not explicitly discuss government operations, but we still held that the records relat[ ed] to the conduct of government under RCW 15 Nissen v. Pierce County, No. 90875-3 42.56.010(3). From them the public could learn about the administration of health care services, facility availability, use and care, methods of diagnosis, analysis, treatment and costs, all of which are carried out or relate to the performance of a governmental or proprietary function. Oliver, 94 Wn.2d at 566. Together these cases suggest records can qualify as public records if they contain any information that refers to or impacts the actions, processes, and functions of government. 8 B. Records Prepared, Owned, Used, or Retained by an Agency As explained previously, a public record must also be prepared, owned, used, or retained by an agency, which includes an agency employee acting within the scope of employment. But the parties still quarrel over the meaning of these verbs, which requires that we further interpret RCW 42.56.010(3). Statutory interpretation starts with the plain meaning of the language; the plain meaning controls if it is unambiguous. Campbell, 146 Wn.2d at 11-12. We may use a dictionary to discern the plain meaning of an undefined statutory term. HomeStreet, Inc. v. Dep 't of Revenue, 166 Wn.2d 444,451,210 P.3d 297 (2009) (citing Garrison v. Wash. State Nursing Bd., 87 Wn.2d 195, 196, 550 P.2d 7 (1996)). 8 It is worth repeating that records an employee maintains in a personal capacity will not qualify as public records, even if they refer to, comment on, or mention the employee's public duties. 16 Nissen v. Pierce County, No. 90875-3 Prepared. Prepare is defined as to put together; to MAKE, PRODUCE; to put into written form. WEBSTER'S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 1790 (2002). This interpretation is consistent with previous cases that treat preparing a record as creating it. See Dawson, 120 Wn.2d at 787 (agency prepared record by creat[ing] one ofthe files); Oliver, 94 Wn.2d at 566 (records of patient's hospitalization prepared by the hospital). Owned. To own a record means to have or hold [it] as property. WEBSTER's, supra, at 1612; see also 0 'Neill v. City ofShoreline, 145 Wn. App. 913, 925, 187 P.3d 822 (2008). Used. We previously addressed what it means for an agency to use a record. We broadly interpreted the term in Concerned Ratepayers Ass 'n v. Pub. Uti!. Dist. No. 1 of Clark County, 138 Wn.2d 950, 960,983 P.2d 635 (1999), holding that the critical inquiry is whether the requested information bears a nexus with the agency's decision-making process. A record that is prepared and held by a third party, without more, is not a public record. But if an agency evaluat[es], review[s], or refer[ s] to a record in the course of its business, the agency uses the record within the meaning of the PRA. Id. at 962. Retained. To retain a record means to hold or continue to hold [it] in possession or use. WEBSTER'S, supra, at 1938. 17 Nissen v. Pierce County, No. 90875-3 C. The Text Messages Are Potentially Public Records; the Call and Text Message Logs Are Not We now apply those definitions to decide if the complaint sufficiently alleges that the call logs and text messages are public records. Absent an allegation that the County used the call and text message logs, the logs in this case are not public records. The call and text message logs were prepared and retained by Verizon, and Nissen does not contend that the County evaluated, reviewed, or took any other action with the logs necessary to use them. Concerned Ratepayers, 138 Wn.2d at 962. Though they evidence the acts of a public employee, the call and text message logs played no role in County business as records themselves. We hold that the complaint fails to allege the call and text message logs are public records of the County within the meaning of RCW 42.56.010(3) because the County did nothing with them. We reach a different conclusion as to text messages. Nissen sufficiently alleges that Lindquist sent and received text messages in his official capacity to take actions retaliating against her and other official misconduct. CP at 14. When acting within the scope of his employment, Lindquist prepares outgoing text messages by putting them into written form and sending them. Similarly, he used incoming text messages when he reviewed and replied to them while within the scope of employment. Since the County and Lindquist admit that some text 18 Nissen v. Pierce County, No. 90875-3 messages might be work related, the complaint sufficiently alleges that those messages meet all three elements of a public record under RCW 42.56.010(3). Transcripts of the content of those text messages are thus potentially public records subject to disclosure, consistent with the procedure discussed below. III. SEARCHING FOR PUBLIC RECORDS WITHIN AN EMPLOYEE'S CONTROL We finally turn to the mechanics of searching for and obtaining public records stored by or in the control of an employee. The County and Lindquist suggest that various provisions of the state and federal constitutions categorically prohibit a public employer from obtaining public records related to private cell phone use without consent. 9 Because an individual has no constitutional privacy interest in a public record, 10 Lindquist's challenge is necessarily grounded in the constitutional rights he has in personal information comingled with those public records. We are mindful that today's mobile devices often contain a 'wealth of detail about [a person's] familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations.' State v. Hinton, 179 Wn.2d 862, 869, 319 P.3d 9 (2014) (alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Jones, 565 U.S._, 132 S. Ct. 945, 955, 181 L. Ed. 2d 911 (2012) (Sotomayor, J., concurring)). As nearly two-thirds of Americans can 9 They primarily cite to the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 7 of the Washington Constitution. 10 See Nixon v. Adm 'r of Gen. Servs., 433 U.S. 425, 457, 97 S. Ct. 2777, 53 L. Ed. 2d 867 (1977) (noting public officials have constitutionally protected privacy rights in matters of personal life unrelated to any acts done by them in their public capacity (emphasis added)). 19 Nissen v. Pierce County, No. 90875-3 now communicate, access the Internet, store documents, and manage appointments on their smartphone, cell phones are fast becoming an indispensable fixture in people's private and professional lives. Text messaging is the most widely used smartphone feature; e-mail is not far behind. Aaron Smith, US. Smartphone Use in 2015, PEW RESEARCH CTR. (Apr. 1, 2015), http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/ us-smartphone-use-in-2015. Yet the ability of public employees to use cell phones to conduct public business by creating and exchanging public records-text messages, e-mails, or anything else-is why the PRA must offer the public a way to obtain those records. Without one, the PRA cannot fulfill the people's mandate to have full access to information concerning the conduct of government on every level. LAws OF 1973, ch. 1, § 1( 11 ). As noted earlier, many counties, cities, and agencies around the state recognize the need to capture and retain public records created on personal devices. Some of those entities provide employees with a way to preserve public records and avoid any inquiry into their private affairs by, for example, syncing work-related
documents, e-mails, and text messages to an agency server or other place accessible to the employer. The County apparently has no such policy. While a policy easing the burden on employees of preserving public records is certainly helpful, it cannot be a precondition to the public's right to access those records. If it were, the effectiveness of the PRA would hinge on the whim of the 20 Nissen v. Pierce County, No. 90875-3 public officials whose activities it is designed to regulate. Mead Sch. Dist. No. 354 v. Mead Educ. Ass 'n, 85 Wn.2d 140, 145, 530 P.2d 302 (1975). The legislature tasks us with interpreting the PRA liberally and in light of the people's insistence that they have information about the workings of the government they created. RCW 42.56.030. Of course, the public's statutory right to public records does not extinguish an individual's constitutional rights in private information. But we do not read the PRA as a zero-sum choice between personal liberty and government accountability. Instead, we turn to well-settled principles of public disclosure law and hold that an employee's good-faith search for public records on his or her personal device can satisfy an agency's obligations under the PRA. Though technology evolves, segregating public records from nonpublic ones is nothing new for agencies responding to a PRA request. Whether stored in a file cabinet or a cell phone, the PRA has never authorized unbridled searches of every piece of information held by an agency or its employees to find records the citizen believes are responsive to a request. Hangartner v. City of Seattle, 151 Wn.2d 439, 448, 90 P.3d 26 (2004). The onus is instead on the agency-necessarily through its employees-to perform an adequate search for the records requested. Neigh. All., 172 Wn.2d at 720-21. To satisfy the agency's burden to show it conducted an adequate search for records, we permit employees in good faith to submit reasonably detailed, nonconclusory affidavits attesting to the nature and extent of 21 Nissen v. Pierce County, No. 90875-3 their search. Id. at 721. The PRA allows a trial court to resolve disputes about the nature of a record based solely on affidavits, RCW 42.56.550(3), without an in camera review, without searching for records itself, and without infringing on an individual's constitutional privacy interest in private information he or she keeps at work. Federal courts implementing the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Pub. L. No. 89-487, 80 Stat. 250, allow individual employees to use the same method to selfsegregate private and public records. See, e.g., Media Research Ctr. v. US. Dep 't of Justice, 818 F. Supp. 2d 131, 139-40 (D.D.C. 2011) (declarations sufficient to determine e-mails were not sent in employee's official capacity); Consumer Fed'n ofAm. v. Dep 't of Agric., 455 F.3d 283, 288-89 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (affidavits from employees about character of electronic calendars); Bloomberg, LP v. US. Sec. & Exch. Comm 'n, 357 F. Supp. 2d 156, 163 (D.D.C. 2004) (affidavits about telephone logs and message slips); Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Clinton, 880 F. Supp. 1, 11-12 (D.D.C. 1995); Gallant v. Nat'l Labor Relations Bd., 26 F.3d 168, 171 (D.C. Cir. 1994). While [a]n agency cannot require an employee to produce and submit for review a purely personal document when responding to a FOIA request[,] ... it does control the employee to the extent that the employee works for the agency on agency matters. Ethyl Corp. v. US. Envt'l Prot. Agency, 25 F.3d 1241, 1247 (4th Cir. 1994). Thus, where a federal employee asserts a potentially responsive record is 22 Nissen v. Pierce County, No. 90875-3 personal, he or she must provide the employer and the courts with the opportunity to evaluate the facts and reach their own conclusions about whether the record is subject to FOIA. Grand Cent. P'ship, Inc. v. Cuomo, 166 F.3d 473, 480-81 (2d Cir. 1999). We already incorporate FO IA' s standard for adequate searches into the PRA, Neigh. All., 172 Wn.2d at 720, and we similarly adopt FOIA's affidavit procedure for an employee's personally held public records. Therefore, we hold agency employees are responsible for searching their files, devices, and accounts for records responsive to a relevant PRA request. Employees must produce any public records (e-mails, text messages, and any other type of data) to the employer agency. The agency then proceeds just as it would when responding to a request for public records in the agency's possession by reviewing each record, determining if some or all of the record is exempted from production, and disclosing the record to the requester. See generally Resident Action Council v. Seattle Hous. Auth., 177 Wn.2d 417, 436-37, 327 P.3d 600 (2013). Where an employee withholds personal records from the employer, he or she must submit an affidavit with facts sufficient to show the information is not a public record under the PRA. So long as the affidavits give the requester and the trial court a sufficient factual basis to determine that withheld material is indeed nonresponsive, the agency has performed an adequate search under the PRA. When done in good faith, this procedure allows an agency to fulfill its responsibility to 23 Nissen v. Pierce County, No. 90875-3 search for and disclose public records without unnecessarily treading on the constitutional rights of its employees. We recognize this procedure might be criticized as too easily abused or too deferential to employees' judgment. Certainly the same can be said of any search for public records, not just for records related to employee cell phone use. But we offer two specific responses. First, an employee's judgment would often be required to help identify public records on a cell phone, even in an in camera review. Text messages, for example, are short communications whose meaning may not be selfapparent. Unlike a chain of e-mails where the preceding messages are often replicated in the body of each new reply, text messages may contain only a few words. The employee then might be needed to put that message into context to determine if it meets the statutory definition of a public record. Second, those criticisms spotlight why agencies should develop ways to capture public records related to employee cell phone use. The people enacted the PRA mindful ofthe right of individuals to privacy, LAWS OF 1973, ch. 1, § 1(11), and individuals do not sacrifice all constitutional protection by accepting public employment. City of Ontario v. Quon, 560 U.S. 746, 756, 130 S. Ct. 2619, 177 L. Ed. 2d 216 (20 10). Agencies are in the best position to implement policies that fulfill their obligations under the PRA yet also preserve the privacy rights of their employees. E-mails can be routed through agency servers, documents can be cached 24 Nissen v. Pierce County, No. 90875-3 to agency-controlled cloud services, and instant messagmg apps can store conversations. Agencies could provide employees with an agency-issued device that the agency retains a right to access, or they could prohibit the use of personal devices altogether. That these may be more effective ways to address employee cell phone use, however, does not diminish the PRA's directive that we liberally construe it here to promote access to all public records. RCW 42.56.010(3).