Opinion ID: 1938008
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Investigatory Files and Records

Text: As noted, a majority of state freedom-of-information laws contain an exemption for law enforcement and investigatory information. The term law enforcement extends beyond criminal proceedings. Bristol-Myers Co. v. F.T.C., 424 F. 2d 935, 939 (D.C. Cir.), cert. den., 400 U.S. 824, 91 S.Ct. 46, 27 L.Ed. 2d 52 (1970). Characterizing a file as investigatory, however, does not foreclose access. Routine review of government functions is not sheltered, but when the inquiry departs from the routine and focuses with special intensity upon a particular party, an investigation is under way. Center for Nat'l Policy Review on Race & Urban Issues v. Weinberger, 502 F. 2d 370, 373 (D.C. Cir.1974). But even in those circumstances, discovery is not fully foreclosed. The exemption invites case-by-case consideration of whether access would probably so prejudice the possibility of effective law enforcement that such disclosure would not be in the public interest. Reinstein v. Police Comm'r of Boston, 378 Mass. 281, 290, 391 N.E. 2d 881, 886 (1979). [3] A familiar method of resolving the tension between the investigating agency's interest in protecting its investigative techniques, procedures or sources of information is for the reviewing court to allow access to the raw data in the files, treating them as factual matter submitted to the agency as a matter of routine. See Weinberger, supra, 502 F. 2d at 373. Thus, for example, in Reinstein v. Police Comm'r of Boston, supra , the court authorized a case-by-case analysis of investigatory materials collected by the Boston City Police concerning investigative procedures touching on firearms cases under departmental rules. That court found no ground for uneasiness about letting the plaintiff have the times and places of incidents or the like or aggregated facts resembling those referred to above by way of illustration. Reinstein, supra, 378 Mass. at 290, 391 N.E. 2d at 886; see also Denver Publishing Co. v. Dreyfus, 184 Colo. 288, 520 P. 2d 104 (1974) (examination of autopsy report can be conditioned upon court's screening contents to excise information that might prejudice pending criminal investigation). Related in kind is the principle that opinion contained in the investigative report would not be subject to disclosure or use in pending trials. A familiar example is the procedure whereby the accident reports of the National Transportation Safety Board are subject to disclosure, provided that none of the opinions contained therein may be used in any civil proceeding, nor may any employee of the National Transportation Safety Board be called upon to testify with respect to anything other than factual matters. See McCandless v. Beech Aircraft Corp., 697 F. 2d 1156 (D.C. Cir.1983). Similar concepts apply to hospital committee proceedings. Many states have enacted statutes that protect the proceedings and reports of hospital review committees from discovery although New Jersey has adopted a less protective statute. See R. Hall, Hospital Committee Proceedings and Reports: Their Legal Status, 1 Am.J.L. & Med. 245, 274-75 (1975); see also Cronin v. Strayer, 392 Mass. 525, 467 N.E. 2d 143 (1984) (medical peer review committee's records were considered a subject of discovery in a physician's defamation action against another physician who reported him to committee); Bredice v. Doctors Hospital, Inc., 50 F.R.D. 249 (D.D.C. 1970), aff'd 479 F. 2d 920 (D.C. Cir.1973) (reports of defendant hospital's staff not subject to discovery without showing of exceptional necessity); Sherman v. District Court, 637 P. 2d 378 (Colo. 1981) (court declined to expand the area of privilege absent legislative action). N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-22.8 prohibits disclosure of data secured by and in the possession of utilization review committees established by any certified hospital or extended care facility in the performance of their duties   . It contains an exception in favor of disclosures to government agencies in the performance of their duties, but it is questionable whether this applies to courts. See Young v. King, 136 N.J. Super. 127 (Law Div. 1975). Thus, it has been held that this respect for peer-review materials is familiar in its content to the work-product doctrine of Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 67 S.Ct. 385, 91 L.Ed. 451 (1947). Recently courts have recognized a qualified privilege of self-examination or self-critical analysis as furthering the public interest. Note, The Privilege of Self-Critical Analysis, 96 Harv.L.Rev. 1083, 1099-1100 (1983); Wylie v. Mills, 195 N.J. Super. 332, 337 (Law Div. 1984). Although we deal here not with peer review but with a licensing board's investigation, the concerns are similar. In short, disclosure of the materials involved in an internal investigation into healthcare service invokes serious and important questions of public policy deserving careful consideration by the courts. An applicant seeking the opinions, conclusions, sources of information and investigative techniques of the agency should demonstrate a need more compelling than the agency's recognized interest in confidentiality.