Opinion ID: 2211455
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Privacy Exemption

Text: Defendants also argue that the information plaintiff requested is exempt from disclosure as information of a personal nature pursuant to M.C.L. § 15.243(1); MSA 4.1801(13)(1). The trial court agreed, finding that public disclosure of the information would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of the applicants' privacy. The Court of Appeals disagreed, reasoning that the information disclosed is not of a personal nature, and, alternatively, that [d]isclosure of the requested information would not constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy because nothing of a highly personal nature would be disclosed. 228 Mich.App. at 290, 577 N.W.2d 696. This case requires us to decide whether the fact of application for a particular public job and information supplied therewith is information of a personal nature and, if so, whether the disclosure of such information would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of an individual's privacy. We begin by once again observing that this exception involves `a highly subjective area of the law where the Legislature has provided little statutory guidance'.... Mager, supra at 143, 595 N.W.2d 142, quoting Swickard, supra at 556, 475 N.W.2d 304. Bearing this in mind, we conclude that the information sought is not personal, and, moreover, that its revelation would not constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy.
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).
Although we have already concluded that the information sought was not characteristically of a personal nature and, therefore, that the privacy exemption does not apply, we will now briefly address the second step of the inquiry: whether disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy. We first note that the trial court committed an error of law when it proceeded directly to this inquiry without first determining whether the request sought information that was of a personal nature. The trial court additionally erred when it concluded that, on these particular facts, disclosure of the requested information would have constituted a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy. By providing that the invasion of privacy must be clearly unwarranted, the Legislature has unmistakably indicated that the intrusion must be more than slight, but a very significant one indeed. In Mager, we determined that disclosure of the names and addresses of registered gun owners would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of the gun owners' privacy. Taking guidance from federal decisions concerning the federal FOIA, we noted that `a court must balance the public interest in disclosure against the interest [the Legislature] intended the exemption to protect.' Id. at 145, 595 N.W.2d 142, quoting United States Dep't of Defense v. Federal Labor Relations Authority, 510 U.S. 487, 495, 114 S.Ct. 1006, 127 L.Ed.2d 325 (1994). We further held that the relevant public interest to be weighed in this balance `is the extent to which disclosure would serve the core purpose of the FOIA, which is contributing significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government. ' Mager, supra at 145, 595 N.W.2d 142, quoting United States Dep't of Defense, supra at 495, 114 S.Ct. 1006 (emphasis in original). On the basis of the foregoing, we held that fulfilling a request for personal information concerning private citizens, where the request was entirely unrelated to any inquiry regarding the inner working of government, would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy. Mager, supra at 146, 595 N.W.2d 142. In short, when the information sought is embarrassing or intimate, and the relationship between the personal information to be disclosed and the operations of our government is slight, the weaker is the case that disclosure should be made under the FOIA. In contrast to the highly personal information at issue in Mager, we conclude that disclosure of the information concerning the final candidates for fire chief in the instant case would serve the policy underlying the FOIA because disclosure would facilitate the public's access to information regarding the affairs of their city government. It can hardly be challenged that the citizens of Bay City had a valid interest in knowing the identities of the final candidates considered in contention for this high-level public position. Keeping in mind that defendants bear the burden of proof that an exemption applies, and balancing the public interest against the relatively circumscribed privacy interest protected by the FOIA exemption, we cannot conclude that the disclosure sought might result in a clearly unwarranted invasion of an individual's privacy. [9]