Court Opinion

ID: 9581557
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:16:14.7431+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:03.926296
License: Public Domain

Fletcher, Justice,
concurring specially.
OCGA § 24-9-27 (d) provides: “No official persons shall be called on to disclose any state matters of which the policy of the state and the interest of the community require concealment.” The community’s interest in competitive prices requires concealment of the state’s estimate of a public project’s construction costs. Sealed bids on public construction projects are essential to ensure the integrity of the bidding process and to bar cronyism and corruption. Therefore, I conclude that the exception for state matters precludes disclosure of the engineer’s cost estimate prior to the completion of any state construction project.
1. This court has interpreted the Open Records Act as requiring a balancing of the public interest in favor of inspection against the public interest in favor of non-inspection. Houston v. Rutledge, 237 Ga. 764, 765 (229 SE2d 624) (1976). As the state points out, the public has an interest in ensuring that the Department of Transportation awards contracts to the lowest reliable bidder. This interest outweighs any public interest in the disclosure of the engineer’s cost estimate prior to the end of construction. If construction companies bidding on projects were allowed to see the engineer’s cost estimate prior to the bid opening, competitive bidding would be eliminated. If access to the estimate were allowed during the construction, then the winning contractor and subcontractors would tailor their bills to the state’s cost estimate of the work. In both instances, premature disclosure of the cost estimate would undermine the state policy and public’s interest in having state projects built at the most competitive price.
The state matter exemption, like other exemptions to the Open *637Records Act, must be narrowly construed. See OCGA § 50-18-72 (g). As a result, the public’s superior interest in nondisclosure during a state construction project dissipates when the project is finished. The Georgia General Assembly recognized this distinction in exempting real estate engineering appraisals for acquiring real property from the Open Records Act until the government acquires the property or terminates the proposed transaction. OCGA § 50-18-72 (a) (6); cf. id. (a) (4) (exempting law enforcement records until litigation involving the investigation and prosecution is final or terminates). Similarly, the exemption for engineering estimates for constructing public projects under OCGA § 24-9-27 ends when the state finishes the construction or abandons the project. Since The Hardaway Company has completed construction of the DOT project, I agree that the state must disclose the engineering estimate under the Open Records Act.
Decided December 1, 1992
Reconsideration denied December 17, 1992.
Lee, Black, Scheer & Hart, Steven E. Scheer, Lewis & McKenna, Sherry L. Wilson, for appellant.
Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, George P. Shingler, Senior Assistant Attorney General, for appellees.
Although the majority opinion cites Board of Regents v. Atlanta Journal & Const., 259 Ga. 214 (378 SE2d 305) (1989), as precluding use of the state matters exception, that case does not apply. The government’s interest in nondisclosure of the cost estimate is not a privacy interest. Unlike the candidates for the presidency of Georgia State University, which the Board of Regents hoped to protect by invoking a “corporate preference for privacy,” there are no individuals or private matters unrelated to the public business that the DOT seeks to protect in this case. For this reason, I disagree with the majority’s rationale in Division 3 and concur specially.
2. Moreover, I disagree that the General Assembly must amend OCGA § 50-18-72 to exempt the engineering cost estimate in this case. See p. 636, supra, n. 4. Engineering estimates relate to the costs of constructing improvements on real estate, whether the state presently owns the property or plans to acquire it. I would hold that engineering estimates for construction projects are exempt under § 50-18-72 (a) (6) until the state completes or terminates the construction project.
I am authorized to state that Justice Hunt joins in this special concurrence.