Court Opinion

ID: 9700338
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:22:36.40758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:07.470832
License: Public Domain

KELLEY, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
I. Account or Voucher
This court has expressed clearly the meaning of “account”, what it means and what it does not mean.
We are convinced that when the Legislature used the word “account” in the definition of a public record it intended that word to have the meaning of a record of debit and credit entries to cover transactions during a fiscal period of time and did not intend the word “account” to mean a statement of facts or events.
Butera v. Commonwealth, 29 Pa.Commonwealth 343, 346, 370 A.2d 1248, 1249 (1977).
It follows that a voucher would also exclude statements of facts and events. The itemization of the facts or events of the caller pen billing are therefore excludable under this court’s prior decision.
Clearly, the itemization sheets are records of facts and events of phone calls, numbers and time. Such is not within the legislative meaning of accounts or vouchers.
*217II. Constitutional Privacy
The itemization sheets should not be available for public disclosure, as it would violate the constitutional guarantees of privacy under the Commonwealth’s Constitution, art. I, § 8.
Obviously, access to information about who is talking to whom, even without direct access to the contents of what they are saying, can be a powerful tool for either good or bad ends. In any case we do not hesitate to say that a caller and the person he calls expect and are entitled to as much privacy in the fact thay are talking to one another as in what they say to each other____
The legislature of this Commonwealth has explicitly recognized that information accessed by the telephone company does not thereby enter the public domain, or the field of scrutiny open to the police.
Commonwealth v. Beauford, 327 Pa.Superior Ct. 253, 266, 475 A.2d 783, 789-90 (1984). The Court went on further:
If any law enforcement officer could, with or without probable cause or even reasonable suspicion, use a pen register on his own authority to record every number dialed by any citizen in Pennsylvania from a residential, business, or government phone, the pen register clearly could become a powerful weapon threatening invasion not only of the individual’s intimate privacy, but also his political liberty, including his rights to associate, to express his views, and even to think in freedom. ... have led us to the conclusion that an individual’s expectation of privacy in the telephone numbers he calls is reasonable, legitimate, and therefore constitutionally protected against government surveillance and intrusion without probable cause.
Beauford, 327 Pa.Superior Ct. at 268-69, 475 A.2d at 791.
Clearly, therefore, the information from the itemization sheets are not available under the Right to Know Statute as disclosure would violate the Constitutional Right of Privacy of the caller and those called.
*218III. Investigation
There is a third reason I would deny the disclosure of the itemization sheets. That is the specific statutory exemption as embracing investigation. The trial court and the majority opinion are too restrictive. The term “Investigation” is not modified in the Act by “criminal”, or “ongoing”, or “completed”, as the trial court and the majority opinion imply.
Investigation is undertaken by all offices of our government. As applied to county government, judicial notice may be taken of the power and duties of all officers thereof. Each enumerated office in Washington County utilizing a cellular phone has investigative powers and duties. The District Attorney, the Sheriff, the Coroner, and Drug Task Force, admittedly by the majority have investigative powers.
I believe the County Commissioners exercising the hybrid function of legislative and executive have a duty to investigate concepts, ideas, in how and what to legislate and/or administer with the Health Center, EMS Services, and the Washington County government. Such investigation would and should vary among the three County Commissioners, communicating with their respective counsel, formally and informally, seeking input from a variety of citizens or other officials beyond the County of Washington. Such duty to investigate is no less than the General Assembly and Executives of the Commonwealth in pursuing their respective legislative and policy making decisions.
Additionally, the Commissioners have a complete responsibility of all County personnel by their permanent membership on the County Salary Board. Personal investigation must be confidential.
To disclose such supplemental information would thwart the free and complete investigation in discharging the responsibility by County Officials.
For any one of the above reasons, I would reverse the trial court and deny the inclusion of the supportive information.