Opinion ID: 2571637
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Private briefings and the Open Meeting Law

Text: The Agency argues that the district court erred in finding that the August 31, 1999, briefings violated the Open Meeting Law and enjoining the Agency from having future briefings. The Agency contends that no quorum of Agency members was present at the August 31 briefings and no collective decision or commitment was ever sought or made at the August 31 briefings. Thus, the Agency contends that there was no meeting in violation of the Open Meeting Law. [13] We agree. The purpose of Nevada's Open Meeting Law is dispositively set forth in NRS 241.010. [14] This court has concluded that [t]he spirit and policy behind NRS chapter 241 favors open meetings. [15] Further, a statute promulgated for the public benefit such as a public meeting law should be liberally construed and broadly interpreted to promote openness in government. [16] However, we have also acknowledged that the Open Meeting Law is not intended to prohibit every private discussion of a public issue. Instead, the Open Meeting Law only prohibits collective deliberations or actions where a quorum is present. [17] Nevada follows a majority of states in adopting a quorum standard as the test for applying the Open Meeting Law to gatherings of the members of public bodies. [18] Thus, a quorum is necessary to apply the Open Meeting Law to a given situation. This is necessitated by the definition of a meeting in the Open Meeting Law. A meeting is defined in NRS 241.015(2) (1999) as: [T]he gathering of members of a public body at which a quorum is present to deliberate toward a decision or to take action on any matter over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction or advisory power. An action for the purposes of the Open Meeting Law is defined in NRS 241.015(1) (1999) as: (a) A decision made by a majority of the members present during a meeting of a public body; (b) A commitment or promise made by a majority of the members present during a meeting of a public body; or (c) A vote taken by a majority of the members present during a meeting of a public body. Action taken in violation of the Open Meeting Law is void. [19] In Attorney General v. Board of Regents, [20] this court addressed serial meetings and their relation to the presence requirements of NRS 241.015(2). The case involved serial telephonic communications between members of the Board of Regents. The Regents were actually asked to vote on an issue via the telephone. [21] We concluded that serial telephonic communications by a quorum of members of a public body for the purpose of  deliberat[ing] toward a decision or to make a decision on any matter over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction or advisory power violates the Open Meeting Law. [22] Although a quorum of the Regents was not present in a physical location, their communications fell within the spirit of the Open Meeting Law. The communications permitted a quorum of the public body to be constructively present, creating a meeting under the Open Meeting Law. Our interpretation of the Open Meeting Law in Board of Regents was influenced by the opinions and writings of the attorney general's office. We noted that the attorney general had consistently stated that telephonic communication or the use of mail polling to make a decision by a quorum of a public body is inconsistent with the spirit and intent of NRS chapter 241. [23] The attorney general has indicated that, while certain forms of communication may be lawful, they `should never be used as a subterfuge to compliance with the Open Meeting Law.' [24] However, we also reiterated in Board of Regents that it was the nature of the communications and the public body's intent to avoid compliance with the Open Meeting Law that turned the serial communications into a constructive quorum. We reaffirmed the language in McKay v. Board of County Commissioners [25] that referenced the ability of public officials to meet privately with less than a quorum to discuss public issues: While properly implying that members of a public body may ultimately make decisions on public matters based upon individual conversations with colleagues, [ McKay ] reiterates that the collective process of decision making, whether legal counsel is present or not, must be accomplished in public. .... That is not to say that in the absence of a quorum, members of a public body cannot privately discuss public issues or even lobby for votes. [26] Here, the district court found that, unlike the serial communications in Board of Regents, the back-to-back briefings conducted with Agency members in this case were not done with the intent to make a decision. However, the district court found that the briefings were deliberations designed to aid Agency members in making a decision. As less than a quorum was present at each briefing, the district court reasoned that the briefings would not constitute a constructive quorum unless the discussions and questions of the Agency members in the first meeting were communicated to the Agency members in the second meeting. The district court then found that there was a possibility of cross-communication between the meetings and that a constructive quorum was established. We disagree.