Opinion ID: 1920961
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Meetings at which communications are considered made to the board in official confidence by other public agencies or the school districts staff where the disclosure of such information to the public is forbidden by law.

Text: The basis for this exception apparently is Minn.St. 595.02(5) which provides: Every person of sufficient understanding, including a party, may testify in any action or proceeding, civil or criminal, in court or before any person who has authority to receive evidence, except as follows:       (5) A public officer shall not be allowed to disclose communications made to him in official confidence when the public interest would suffer by the disclosure. This statute is directed at the competency of witnesses in any civil or criminal action or proceeding. Possibly it discloses an underlying policy of the legislature much the same as a statutory lawyer-client privilege does. It is not claimed here that any of the school board meetings were closed because of any communications made in official confidence when the public interest would suffer by the disclosure. One of plaintiffs' objections to this exception is that it was not presented in the evidence nor litigated. We concur in this view as we would prefer to pass upon this exception in some case in which there is some claimed communication made in official confidence and the public's interest in nondisclosure is ventilated.