Opinion ID: 6335166
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: whether there are other ways to obtain the

Text: information; (4) “[w]hether the information sought sheds light on a government activity”; and (5) “[w]hether the information is related to job function, or is of a personal nature.” See OIP Op. Ltr. No. 10-03 at 6-7 (Oct. 5, 2010). These non-exclusive factors are a nice starting point for HRS Section 92F-14(a) balancing. 14 And here, each factor supports the Report’s disclosure. The Subjects - Acting Auditor Jan Yamane, Deputy Auditor Rachel Hibbard, and General Counsel and HR Manager Kathleen Racuya-Markrich - were the Office of the Auditor’s top brass, not line auditors or administrative staff. And the Report is damning: it provides strong evidence of unethical and unprofessional conduct in the Office of the Auditor. The Report contains information about: (1) the Office 14 As we explained in Organization of Police Officers, these factors “might be useful or relevant depending on the circumstances of the individual case” but “they are neither necessary nor dispositive.” 149 Hawai‘i at 517, 494 P.3d at 1250. 22  FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI‘I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER  of the Auditor’s exaggeration and sensationalizing of its findings; (2) the Office of the Auditor’s fabrication of findings about auditee agencies; (3) the inexperience and incompetence of the Office of the Auditor’s leadership; (4) the Office of the Auditor’s alleged failure to complete an audit it was required, by law, to complete; (5) the Office of the Auditor’s efforts to artificially inflate the number of audit reports it produced; and (6) the toxic workplace at the Office of the Auditor. The third factor examines “whether the government is the only means for obtaining the desired information.” OIP Op. Ltr. No. 10-03 at 7. The government is Civil Beat’s only option for getting the Report. This factor supports disclosure. The fourth factor also favors the Report’s disclosure. The Report spotlights the workings of the Office of the Auditor. In Peer News I, we recognized that “‘the appropriate concern of the public as to the proper performance of public duty is to be given great weight’ when balanced against competing privacy interests.” 138 Hawai‘i at 73, 376 P.3d at 21 (quoting SHOPO, 83 Hawai‘i at 399, 927 P.2d at 407). Fifth, none of the information in the Report concerns the Subjects’ personal affairs. All of it in some way connects to their official work in the Office of the Auditor. The Report contains some colorful descriptions of the work environment at 23  FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI‘I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER  the Office of the Auditor. But this is largely a function of the manner in which the State AG conducted the Investigation. The AG’s investigator would ask interviewees if they had heard about various incidents of harassment within the Office of the Auditor. It is unsurprising that some of the responses he got contained commentary on colleagues’ interpersonal dynamics. Nothing in the Report is purely personal, though: there’s no “gossip” about the Subjects’ (or anyone else’s) personal lives, just candid descriptions of a toxic workplace environment. Because the information in the Report relates to the Subjects’ job functions, not their personal affairs, this factor favors the public’s interest in disclosure. The datedness of the record is also relevant to HRS § 92F14(a) balancing. Here, the Report dates to spring 2016 and it describes an investigation that happened about six years ago, in 2015 and early 2016. The record’s age cuts both ways. The Subjects’ “significant privacy interests” in the Report have waned over time. See McDonnell v. United States, 4 F.3d 1227, 1256 (3d Cir. 1993) (recognizing that individuals’ privacy interests may become “diluted by the passage of time”). At the same time, the public’s interest in the Report’s disclosure – though still substantial - is lower than it would be if Yamane were still Acting Auditor. Cf. Peer News I, 138 Hawai‘i at 82, 376 P.3d at 30 (Pollack, J., concurring) (recognizing that 24  FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI‘I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER  public interest in holding a police officer accountable for his conduct “may be significantly diminished if the officer is retired, was subsequently acquitted of the conduct, or is no longer serving as an armed officer”). On balance, the Report’s age supports disclosure. A final factor that informs our analysis is the Office of the Auditor’s importance: this highly-visible and constitutionally-established office is a first line of defense against government inefficiency - or worse. See Hawaii Constitutional Convention Studies, Article VI: Taxation and Finance, Legislative Reference Bureau, at 70-78 (June 1978). The critical role the Office of the Auditor plays in promoting trust and confidence in government enhances the public’s interest in the Report. We conclude that the State AG has not met its burden of showing that the Privacy Exemption wholesale shields the Report from disclosure: the public’s interests in the Report’s disclosure outweigh the Subjects’ significant privacy interests in the Report as a personnel-related record. And because there is more than a “scintilla” of public interest in the Report’s disclosure, the non-Subjects’ non-significant privacy interests in information within the Report are also eclipsed. 25  FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI‘I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER  2. Four categories of information within the Report come within the Privacy Exemption The fact that the Report is not wholesale shielded from disclosure by the Privacy Exemption, does not mean that none of the information within it is covered by the Privacy Exemption. We must consider each subset of information within the Report to determine whether its release would result in a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Cf. Mead Data Cent., Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of the Air Force, 566 F.2d 242, 261 n.55 (D.C. Cir. 1977) (observing that “the focus of the FOIA is information, not documents as a whole”). There are four categories of information in the Report that, if disclosed, would “constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” They are: (1) summaries of the Office of the Auditor’s personnel records; (2) findings and discussions concerning minor policy infractions committed by non-Subjects; (3) the names of interviewees and Office of the Auditor employees mentioned in the Report; and (4) information about individuals’ medical conditions. These four categories of information fall within the Privacy Exemption and may be redacted from the Report. a. Summaries of the Office of the Auditor’s personnel files fall within the Privacy Exemption As part of the Investigation, the State AG reviewed records maintained in the Office of the Auditor’s personnel files. The 26  FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI‘I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER  Report summarizes some of these records. For example, it describes in depth a demotion letter and several formal performance appraisals. HRS § 92F-14(b)(4) does not confer a significant privacy interest in every offhanded reference to a personnel record or matter. Yet those whose personnel records are reviewed in detail by the Report do have a significant privacy interest in those summaries, just as they would in the records themselves. The public’s interest in these summaries is, in contrast, low. They may shed light on certain government workers’ performance, but they add little to the Report’s description of the Office of the Auditor, at large. The public’s minimal interest in the Report’s summaries of personnel records is outweighed by the Office of the Auditor employees’ significant privacy interests in those discussions. The Report’s summaries of formal personnel records are therefore exempt from the UIPA’s disclosure requirements under HRS § 92F13(1). b. Findings and discussions exclusively concerned with minor misconduct by non-Subjects The Report contains two findings concerning minor misconduct by a non-Subject. And there are scattered sentences within the Report that exclusively concern non-Subjects’ compliance, or lack thereof, with various Office of the Auditor 27  FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI‘I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER  polices. (For example, the leave and computer use policies.) These lines are diffuse throughout the Report. But collectively they, and the two findings referenced above, are, “akin to the information maintained in a personnel file.” 15 See OIP Op. Ltr. No. 98-05 at 20. So the non-Subjects whose compliance or noncompliance with workplace policies is addressed in the Report have a significant privacy interest in those discussions and findings under HRS § 92F-14(b)(4). 16 The public’s interest in learning about minor policy violations committed by low-ranking Office of the Auditor employees over six years ago is low. So even though this information does concern public employees’ performance of their official duties, the public’s interest in its disclosure does not outweigh the non-Subjects’ significant privacy interests in the information. Thus, to the limited extent the Report contains findings and discussions that are exclusively concerned with non-Subjects’ policy infractions, that information is exempt from the UIPA’s disclosure requirements under HRS § 92F- 15 Formal summaries describing an employee’s compliance or non-compliance with written workplace policies – unlike lengthy qualitative accounts of office grudges or written descriptions of employees’ routine interactions and relative popularity – are the type of documents one would expect to find in the files of an agency’s personnel department. 16 This privacy interest encompasses only information directly and exclusively concerned with the issue of an individual’s compliance or noncompliance with an established workplace policy. Non-Subjects do not have significant privacy interests in, for example, discussions about the Subjects’ uneven or unfair implementation of those policies. 28  FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI‘I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER  13(1). c. Interviewees’ names – but not Subjects’ - fall within the Privacy Exemption The public does not gain better insight into the workings of the Office of the Auditor by learning the identities of those interviewed or mentioned in the Report: it lacks even a trace of interest in this information. See OIP Op. Ltr. No. 98-05 at 18 (“[T]here is little or no public interest in the disclosure of the information which identifies witnesses and complainants.”); OIP Op. Ltr. No. 10-03 at 5 (“[T]he public interest in shedding light on the agency’s operations is generally served by disclosure of the nature of alleged misconduct and how the agency responded to it, without the name of the concerned employee and other details that could reasonably lead to the employee’s identification.”); Cf. Albuquerque Publ’g Co. v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 726 F.Supp. 851, 856 (D.D.C. 1989) (observing that the names of third parties associated with Drug Enforcement Administration investigation are “irrelevant” to question of how DEA conducts its investigations). The public has no interest in knowing the identities of those interviewed and mentioned in the Report. So even though the non-Subjects do not have a significant privacy interest in 29  FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI‘I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER  the Report as a whole, the disclosure of their names 17 would be a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy. 18 The same is not true with respect to the Subjects’ names: the public’s interest in monitoring the conduct of the Office of the Auditor’s managerial staff outweighs any privacy interests the Subjects may have in the non-disclosure of their identities. See Peer News I, 138 Hawai‘i at 80, 376 P.3d at 28 (Pollack, J., concurring) (quoting OIP Op. Ltr. No. 98-05 at 21 for the proposition that “[c]ourts have identified the public interest in disclosure of the identities of employees as one which lies in holding those public officials accountable for their conduct”). The Subjects’ names, then, are not shielded from 17 The Report also contains information such as job titles and references to individuals’ professional history that – though not as directly identifying as a name – might still enable those intimately familiar with the inner workings of the Office of the Auditor in the mid-2010s to connect the dots on who’s who even with the redactions. This information is “identifying information.” See Rose, 425 U.S. at 380 (stating that “what constitutes identifying information . . . must be weighed . . . from the vantage of those who would have been familiar” with the matter). And in many cases involving “significant” privacy interests, its disclosure could “constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” But that is not the case here. While the public has no interest in knowing interviewees’ identities, it does have a cognizable interest in helpful contextualizing information about interviewees’ positions. Because of this public interest in the identifying information and the non-Subject employees’ lack of a significant privacy right in it, the disclosure of this information would not constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. 18 Because there is not a trace of public interest in knowing the nonSubjects’ names, our conclusion that these names should be redacted is fully consistent with our holding that the non-Subjects do not have a significant privacy interest in the Report. See Org. of Police Officers, 149 Hawai‘i at 504, 494 P.3d at 1237 (explaining that information in which there is zero public interest may fall within the Privacy Exemption even if there are no significant privacy interests in it). The dissent’s contention to the contrary, see dissent at 18 n.7, is puzzling. 30  FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI‘I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER  UIPA disclosure by the Privacy Exemption. d. The Report’s discussions of individuals’ medical conditions, disabilities, and bodies fall within the Privacy Exemption The Report documents several allegations of harassment or adverse treatment based on perceived disability or sickness. These references are information “relating to [a] medical . . . condition.” See HRS § 92F-14(b)(1). Under HRS Section 92F14(b)(1), this category of information is one in which individuals may have a significant privacy interest. An individual’s privacy interest in, for example, a colleague’s vague reference to “medical issues” may be lower than their interest in more clinical health information. But the individuals whose disabilities, health, and bodies are discussed – even in passing – by the Report have a “significant privacy interest” in those discussions. The public interest in learning about the few allegations in the Report concerning medical conditions is very low. This information doesn’t shed light on a government activity. And it implicates personal, rather than professional concerns. Given these considerations, significant privacy interests outweigh the public’s interest in the disclosure of information concerning health, disability, and body size. Disclosing this information would be a “clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” See HRS § 92F-13(1). This small subset of 31  FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAI‘I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER  information in the Report that relates to individuals’ medical conditions is thus exempt from the UIPA’s disclosure requirements. See id.