Court Opinion

ID: 9667629
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:51:02.394201+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:39.391907
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice,
concurring specially.
I concur in the opinion written for the court by Justice Paulson. I do so because I believe that the personnel records were kept by the City in its ordinary course of business; that the public has a right to be informed as to its public officials and employees; and that the records therefore are public records within the meaning of the pertinent statutory and constitutional provisions. By so doing I do not imply that every scrap of paper a public official or a public employee might retain in the course of his tenure with a public body is a public record. The pertinent statutory and constitutional provisions do not define the term “record.” Justice Paulson in the majority opinion has concluded that the term, as used in these provisions, implies a document of some official import to be retained by a public officer or employee in the course of his public duties. I agree with that conclusion.
*580The North Dakota Legislature, in enacting the open-records statute and in adopting the resolution which resulted in a constitutional amendment with nearly identical language, very probably left the term “record” undefined so that it might be given a broad meaning. That reasoning may be understandable but it also vests wide discretion in the public officer. Except for records which are required by specific statute or local ordinance or policy to be retained, certain officers may determine to not retain documents which should be retained, simply because they do not wish them to be available to the public. As an example, whether or not public bodies will retain extensive personnel records following this decision may be open to question. There are few, if any, statutes that prescribe the maintenance of personnel files or identify the material that must be retained in those files if they are maintained.
If the City and Knutson believe that maintenance of personnel files is necessary but such records should not be open to public inspection, their remedy is by the legislative process. Both our statute and our constitutional provision specify that “except as otherwise provided by law” public records are open to the public for inspection. The phrase “except as otherwise provided by law” obviously implies authority in the Legislature to make certain records confidential, and there are statutes which do exactly that. Recent attempts to make certain records confidential have resulted in statements that such legislation will result in a persistent attempt in the future to close to public scrutiny even more records and therefore no such legislation should be enacted. There appears to be little doubt that the constitutional provision expresses a policy of open records, but it also expresses the policy that the Legislature has the authority to determine whether or not a specific record should be confidential.
Finally, while I agree with the majority opinion that our Constitution contains no express right of privacy, I do not read it as foreclosing in the future any and all such challenges to disclosure of certain information in records retained by public agencies, in the absence of a statute making that information confidential. As an example, it was apparently believed necessary to provide that the medical records of patients at the University of North Dakota Medical Center Rehabilitation Hospital should be kept confidential. Sec. 15-10-17(2), N.D. C.C. If no such provision existed, I would nonetheless hold that such records should be confidential, under a right of privacy if necessary, because I do not believe that a private individual who seeks medical treatment through the only such available facility in the State should, because the facility is owned and operated by the State, be forced to face the prospect of having his medical record made public as a condition of that treatment. Thus, while I agree there may be no right of privacy in a personnel record of a person employed by a public agency, I would not entirely foreclose the possibility that such a right might exist in the future with regard to personal information contained in the records of public agencies but which information does not affect the operation of that agency as a public agency.
SAND, J., concurs.