Court Opinion

ID: 9742104
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:06:50.561995+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:28.573906
License: Public Domain

Boyle, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I concur with the Court’s conclusion that the University of Michigan Board of Regents violated the Open Meetings Act in its search for a new president.1 I write separately, however, because I cannot agree with the majority’s determination that the Open Meetings Act requires that the entire presidential selection process be conducted in public view.21 would hold that the oma does not compel that information gathered in the initial *236candidate screening process be disclosed to the public, nor does it dictate the revelation of a candidate’s identity without consent or before the scheduling of a public interview.
Finally, I do not agree that the Freedom of Information Act was violated by redacting the final destination on the search committee’s travel expense forms.
i
It is beyond question that the Open Meetings Act, MCL 15.261 et seq.; MSA 4.1800(11) et seq., and the Freedom of Information Act, MCL 15.231 et seq.; MSA 4.1801(1) et seq., were enacted by the Legislature to promote openness and accountability in government. As noted by the majority, the ultimate goal of the Legislature in enacting the oma was to educate the general public regarding government decision making, while at the same time creating a responsible and competent public body. The success of the act is reflected in its high rate of support and compliance among a majority of public bodies at both the state and local level.3 Before concluding, however, that every endeavor of a public body in the context of hiring must be conducted in full view of the public under the auspices of the oma and the foia, it is essential to examine the purpose and boundaries of those acts.
A
The Open Meetings Act requires that all meetings, decisions, and quorum deliberations of a public body take place at a forum open to the *237public.4 I agree with the Court that, in this case, the President Selection Committee was a "public body” as defined by the act because it was empowered to select the university’s new president.5 The Board of Regents appointed "itself ” the President Selection Committee. The committee was, in reality, the Board of Regents and thus could not deliberate and recommend to itself, the board, a list of final candidates for public interview without violating the oma provision requiring that all "decisions” of a quorum of a public body be conducted at a public meeting. In my judgment, how*238ever, despite the intent to read the oma broadly, and with limited exceptions, 1976 Journal of the House 2242; Wexford Co Prosecutor v Pranger, 83 Mich App 197, 201; 268 NW2d 344 (1978), the Legislature did not intend that the act apply to every venture undertaken by a public body in the context of hiring.
The compiling of a list of names, reviewing qualifications, and identifying a limited number of persons for interviews to further assess their capability and interest in the position, are tasks that are ministerial in nature and not "public business” within the purview of the oma. Screening from the original inventory of 250 names, a list of thirty potential candidates who were more qualified than the others was not a public body meeting, deliberation, or decision effectuating public policy. Whether performed by administrative staff, a third party, or the Board of Regents itself, does not change the technical and qualitative nature of the task. At no time during this initial screening process was there any "decision” by any person or public body to eliminate or remove any person from the list of 250 potential candidates. Rather, the assignment involved the gathering and sorting of submitted names to locate those persons who might be best qualified for the position of president of the university.
Tapering the list from the thirty most qualified "potential” candidates to twelve "actual” candidates was executed by the candidates themselves and not through any action of a public body or official. These twelve candidates expressed an interest in the position and, when asked, requested that their preliminary candidacy remain confidential. Although no "applications” per se were submitted, a logical inference follows that when the potential candidates affirmed an interest in pursu*239ing the position, they became "applicants” within the meaning of the oma. Pursuant to MCL 15.268(f); MSA 4.1800(18)(f), authorizing closed meetings by the full public body to deliberate and review applications for appointment when the applicant requests confidentiality, the board met in a private session to evaluate the twelve candidates’ curricula vitae. Hence, no violation of the oma by the President Selection Committee or the board occurred at this stage of the selection process.
Although § 8(f) enables a public body to meet in closed session to review the specific contents of an employment application, the second sentence of the same provision provides that all interviews by a public body for employment shall be held in an open meeting.6 The tension between the sentences is apparent when a public body, authorized to review and discuss a candidate’s application at a closed meeting, is unable to render any "decision”7 concerning the candidate without violating the open meeting requirement that all "decisions” of the public body be made in an open forum. In an attempt to reconcile this conflict, it has been sug*240gested that the public body create a committee composed of outside members or a subquorum of public officials, and charge the group with recommending a final list of candidates who are most qualified and suited for the position. As a nonpublic body without authority to exercise a government function, it has been contended that the committee would be free to meet in private and to conduct confidential interviews with some or all of the candidates to facilitate the development of its recommendation of final candidates to the full public body. See Wernet, A guide to the hiring process for public bodies under Michigan’s Open Meetings Act, 63 Mich B J 1040 (1984); OAG, 1977-1978, No 5183, pp 21, 40 (March 8, 1977).
The President Selection Committee was not a committee empowered solely with authority to advise or make a recommendation to the full board because, as indicated above, the committee was "itself” the board. The committee therefore could not accomplish in subquorum groups what it was prohibited by the oma from performing as a quorum public body. At the juncture in the process when the board conducted subquorum private interviews, deliberations, and decisions concerning the twelve applicants for employment, it violated the mandates of the oma.8 The board does not deny, and it is unclear from the record, whether a quorum of the regents as President Selection Committee members may have interviewed any single applicant, albeit at different times. Nevertheless, even absent a quorum of regents interviewing any *241one candidate, the board violated the oma’s public interview requirement. The Attorney General has determined that the Open Meetings Act
is violated when a committee comprised of [a] quorum of the public body, or subcommittees of a public body, which constructively constitute a quorum of the public body, collectively deliberate on or render decisions on public policy in a closed session on matters which do not fall within the provisions of the Open Meetings Act, supra, § 8, allowing a closed meeting. The fact that these committees are physically separated while they deliberate on public business does not insulate them from the requirements of the Open Meetings Act, supra. [OAG, 1979-1980, No 5788, pp 1015, 1017 (September 23, 1980).]
Thus,
[w]hile a committee or subcommittee of a public body which constitutes less than [a] quorum of the public body, and is purely advisory in nature, is not subject to the Open Meetings Act, supra, a public body which divides itself into subcommittees of less than quorum to collectively deliberate towards the resolution of public business, is in fact, acting as a "public body.” A public body may not avoid violating the Act by clothing itself as a sham advisory committee or subcommittee of less than a quorum. [Id. at 1016.]
Similar to the Attorney General opinions concerning the division of a public body into subquorum committees, the Court of Appeals in Booth Newspapers, Inc v Wyoming City Council, 168 Mich App 459, 472; 425 NW2d 695 (1988), upheld the trial court’s finding that the city council violated the oma when it divided into subquorum groups to deliberate matters of public policy it normally would have been required to discuss at an open *242meeting. The Court found that a "constructive quorum” actually existed, and, thus, its deliberations and actual decisions were subject to the act. The act would also be violated if a public body simply labeled a meeting a "conference” and refrained from engaging in any actual deliberations or discussion in an attempt to utilize the conference exemption contained in §3(10).9 OAG, 1981-1982, No 6074, pp 662, 664 (June 11, 1982); OAG, 1979-1980, No 5433, p 29 (January 31,1979).
In this case, there was no express finding of fact by the trial court that the regents’ subquorum interviews and discussions were designed to circumvent the oma’s requirements. Conversely, several regents, including Regent Brown, testified that the interviews and subsequent feedback discussions were conducted in this format to comply with the act’s subquorum mandates.10 Whether viewed as "avoiding” the act or "complying” with the act, is, in this factual presentation, a distinction without a difference. The overall purpose of the interviews and follow-up discussions were to narrow the list of candidates for final consideration.11 Unable to make an advisory recommendation to itself because its membership included the entire public body, the President Selection Committee, as a public body, was required by the oma to conduct open interviews and decisions. The recommendation by Regent Brown, as chair of the committee, to further interview five candidates in private with participation from the three advisory groups and, finally, to interview two candidates in public was, in reality, the general consensus and *243view of the entire board after discussing the candidates in several closed meetings and phone conversations with all the regents.12 Such decision making violated the act by not taking place in a public forum. MCL 15.263(2); MSA 4.1800(13X2). See also OAG 1979-1980, No 5445, p 57 (February 22, 1979).
Read literally, the act entitles a public body to meet in closed sessions to review an advisory committee’s recommendation of finalists or a candidate’s application.13 In any event, the decision concerning the disposition of a final candidate must be conducted at a forum open to the general public. However, while I agree with the conclusion that the process selected by the Board of Regents in this case ultimately violated the mandates of the oma, the identity of candidates recommended by a true advisory committee need not be disclosed until a final list of candidates is recommended to the full public body.
The majority opinion rests on the explicit premise that the prodisclosure purpose of the act requires broad application of the oma to all phases of the public hiring process.14 This approach overlooks the fact that, as enacted, the oma is actually less comprehensive than the act originally proposed. The initial draft of the act would have included within the definition of a public body "any . . . state or local government entity to make recommendations concerning the exercise of *244governmental authority.” SB 920, § 2(a). The applicability of the act to such recommending entities was stricken by the first amendment of the bill. See 1975 Journal of the Senate 2400. The Attorney General subsequently concluded that the oma
does not apply to committees and subcommittees of public bodies which are merely advisory or only capable of making "recommendations concerning the exercise of governmental authority.” These bodies are not legally capable of rendering a "final decision.” In other words, a subcommittee which can only make recommendations to the public body for final decision is not required to hold its committee meetings in public hearings. . . . [W]here such [a] subcommittee contains the entire body of the "public body” which it serves, it would be a violation of the Act to allow such subcommittees to meet in closed session. [OAG, 1977-1978, No 5183, supra, p 40. See also OAG, 1979-1980, No 5505, pp 221-222 (July 3, 1979).]
Having specifically considered and rejected the idea that "recommendations” by a committee or subcommittee of a public body concerning the exercise of government authority be included in the act’s definition of a "public body,” it can safely be concluded that the Legislature intended to exempt such entities from the oma’s public forum requirements. The public body could create such an advisory committee to maintain the confidentiality of preliminary candidates and to recommend a pool of finalists for its consideration. Although the oma imposes no literal restrictions or reporting requirements on advisory committees, to effectuate the purpose of the oma, the committee should provide with its recommendation reasons for its recommendation and the procedures and methods used in reaching it. OAG, 1979-1980, No 5788, supra, pp 1017-1018. As always, the public *245body would be free to reject, accept, or modify the committee’s nonbinding recommendation.
B
I also disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the oma requires that a public body disclose the identity of a candidate yet allows it to meet in a closed session to review "personal matters contained in a candidate’s application.” Ante at 230.15 To read the oma in this manner is nonsensical. First, it is a violation of an applicant’s civil rights under the Civil Rights Act for an employer to consider a prospective employee’s "religion, race, color, national origin, age, sex, height, weight, or marital status” with respect to employment. MCL 37.2202(l)(a); MSA 3.548(202)(l)(a). Additionally, an employer is prohibited from soliciting such information on the employment application. MCL 37.2206; MSA 3.548(206). Thus, it is incomprehensible to read the oma as permitting the regents to conduct a closed meeting to consider personal information that it can neither obtain on an employment application nor consider in making its decision, absent a violation of the candidate’s civil rights. Second, the position of president of a major public university customarily attracts well-qualified, prominent, and distinguished persons. The information submitted and reviewed generally includes the candidate’s curriculum vitae, rather *246than an employment "application” per se filled out by a hopeful applicant. It is only logical to assume that the Legislature understood that in hiring situations for high level positions, the most sensitive information, and that most in need of being defined as confidential, is the candidate’s identity. The Legislature’s highly sophisticated experience in such matters must be deemed to have contemplated that once the identity of a candidate who is generally well-known and respected within a given community is made public, the candidate’s biographical resume is often an open book and easily obtainable. Given that the result of such disclosure is to serve notice upon the candidate’s current employer that the person is contemplating other employment and to discourage the best candidates from pursuing an interest in the position, it strains credulity to believe that the Legislature intended a result so inconsistent with public interest and the hiring needs of public bodies.
For the above reasons, the oma should be construed to grant a public body the power to refuse to disclose the identity of a preliminary candidate when confidentiality is requested and to permit the review and deliberation of the candidate’s qualifications to occur in a closed meeting. If recommended as a finalist for the position, the candidate should be afforded the opportunity to withdraw before a formal public recommendation to the hiring body. Any candidate who consents to further consideration by the full public body must be deemed to have waived the right to privacy, yielding to the public’s right to know the qualifications of the candidate and satisfying the act’s requirement that where the public body reserves to itself the final decision for appointment to certain levels of employment, without exception, those interviews must be conducted in public. *247OAG, 1977-1978, supra, pp 38-39; Wernet, supra, p 1042.
The balancing of the public’s interest in the qualities of candidates and in the process by which they are chosen, against the interest of the university in attracting the finest candidate for the position is best achieved by reading the act in the manner suggested.
c
The Freedom of Information Act, MCL 15.231 et seq.; MSA 4.1801(1) et seq., provides:
It is the public policy of this state that all persons are entitled to full and complete information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of those who represent them as public officials and public employees, consistent with this act. The people shall be informed so that they may fully participate in the democratic process.
The act promotes a policy of full disclosure, Swick-ard v Wayne Co Medical Examiner, 438 Mich 536, 543; 475 NW2d 304 (1991). However, the foia is not absolute and affords an exception from disclosure of "Conformation of a personal nature where the public disclosure of the information would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of an individual’s privacy.” MCL 15.243(l)(a); MSA 4.1801(13)(l)(a). I agree with the majority that the exemptions must be narrowly construed and that the public body bears the burden of proving the need for the exemption. Ante at 232. However, I cannot agree with the determination that the information sought by the plaintiff newspaper was not of a personal nature and thus not exempt from disclosure in this situation.
The plaintiffs requested copies of all travel ex*248pense vouchers submitted for reimbursement for travel expenses by the regents or other personnel for presidential interview expenses. The university complied and forwarded copies of its records concerning the dates of travel, the name of the regent traveling, the hub-city destination,16 and the total amount and breakdown of expenses for each trip. Citing § 13(l)(a), the final destinations were redacted from the travel expense forms in an effort to protect the confidentiality of the candidates’ identities.
As noted by Justice Cavanagh in the lead opinion in State Employees Ass’n v Dep’t of Management & Budget, 428 Mich 104, 123; 404 NW2d 606 (1987), and quoted with approval by Justice Riley in Swickard, supra at 546:
The Legislature made no attempt to define the right of privacy [in § 13(l)(a)]. We are left to apply the principles of privacy developed under the common law and our constitution. The contours and limits are thus to be determined by the court, as the trier of fact, on a case-by-case basis in the tradition of the common law. Such an approach permits, and indeed requires, scrutiny of the particular facts of each case, to identify those in which ordinarily impersonal information takes on "an intensely personal character” justifying nondisclosure under the privacy exemption.
Although the release of a person’s name, without more, is generally not considered an invasion of privacy, Justice Ryan in Kestenbaum v Michigan State Univ, 414 Mich 510, 547; 327 NW2d 783 (1982), observed that such a predicament may exist and left "for another day the question whether, in certain unusual circumstances, ordinarily impersonal information might take on an intensely per*249sonal character.” This case presents such a situation.
The Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s finding that "disclosure of the regents’ travel destinations would, with little further investigation, reveal the candidates’ identities, thereby constituting a clearly unwarranted invasion of their privacy.” 192 Mich App 574, 586; 481 NW2d 778 (1992). I agree. As previously recognized by this Court in Kestenbaum, State Employees Ass’n, and Swickard, the foia does not require blanket application without regard to the factual context.
Each of the twelve candidates, comprised of presidents of other universities and persons holding equally responsible positions, requested that their preliminary consideration as president of the University of Michigan remain confidential. The trial court found that disclosure of the regents’ final travel destination was tantamount to revealing the identity of the specific candidate under consideration. Divulging information that easily led to the identity of the prospective employee was equivalent to releasing information that was "personal, intimate, or embarrassing” to the applicant, Swickard at 547. The fear of reprisal from a current employer or trepidation that "public knowledge of nonselection would stigmatize them as having been weighed and found wanting and thereby blight their future careers as educational administrators,” 192 Mich App 587, was exactly the type of unwarranted invasion of privacy causing injury that the candidates sought to avoid. Thus, revealing information that would easily lead to the candidate’s identity as an applicant for the position constituted a clearly unwarranted invasion of promised privacy. See Core v United States Postal Service, 730 F2d 946 (CA 4, 1984).
The majority’s fear that to rule otherwise in this *250case could lead to "undesired consequences and precedents” fostering a "myriad of scenarios under which the disclosure of one particular type of information might lead someone to discover other material deemed 'personal’ ” to an individual, is both unwarranted and unfounded. Ante at 233. The potential risk or opportunity for abuse has never alone been a sufficient and valid reason for interpreting a statute in a particular manner. The intent of the Legislature in exempting from the foia information of a personal nature that would clearly invade an individual’s privacy was to protect individuals from suffering injury or embarrassment from such disclosure. In this case, the information that was personal and intimate to the individuals was their identities as employment applicants. I see no clear error in the Court of Appeals affirmance of the trial court’s denial of the plaintiffs’ foia request and would hold that the redacting of the final destination on the university’s travel expense forms was not a violation of the act. Moreover, there has been no suggestion that the expenses were not justified, a matter which, if claimed, would permit in camera inspection by the trial court to balance the taxpayers’ interest in the validity of tax dollars expended against privacy exemptions under the foia. Nicita v Detroit, 194 Mich App 657; 487 NW2d 814 (1992).
ii
In sum, I would hold that the Open Meetings Act does not compel that information gathered in the initial presidential screening process be disclosed to the public, nor does it dictate the revelation of a candidate’s identity without consent or before the scheduling of a public interview. Additionally, I would uphold the lower courts’ finding *251that the Freedom of Information Act was not violated by redacting the final destinations on the regents’ travel expense forms.
Levin, J., concurred with Boyle, J., except with respect to part i(c).

 I also concur with the majority that the Board of Regents’ constitutional argument, which was raised for the first time in this Court, has not been properly preserved for appellate review. Ante at 234.

 Similarly, I cannot agree with Justice Riley’s finding that the Board of Regents is entirely exempt from the Open Meetings Act and that, pursuant to the Michigan Constitution, only its "formal” sessions need be open to the public. The board does not assert that it is *236exempt from the oma, but, rather, that the act "as applied and construed by the Court of Appeals to require premature disclosure of candidate names . . . will prevent the Board from exercising its best Constitutional judgment as to how to elect a president.”

 Wernet, A guide to the hiring process for public bodies under Michigan’s Open Meetings Act, 63 Mich B J 1040 (1984).

 MCL 15.263; MSA 4.1800(13) provides in pertinent part:
(1) All meetings of a public body shall be open to the public and shall be held in a place available to the general public. All persons shall be permitted to attend any meeting except as otherwise provided in this act. . . .
(2) All decisions of a public body shall be made at a meeting open to the public.
(3) All deliberations of a public body constituting a quorum of its members shall take place at a meeting open to the public except as provided in this section and sections 7 and 8.
The significance of § 3 is realized by examining § 2(a), which defines "public body” as
any state or local legislative or governing body, including a board, commission, committee, subcommittee, authority, or council, which is empowered by state constitution, statute, charter, ordinance, resolution, or rule to exercise governmental or proprietary authority or perform a governmental or proprietary function .... [MCL 15.262(a); MSA 4.1800(12)(a).]

 Regent Brown, the chair of the President Selection Committee, testified that although the committee did not receive an express charge from the board, its purpose "was understood. We were supposed to find a president.” The committee, "delegated” with the task of, in Chairman Brown’s words, finding a president for the university, became a "public body” within the meaning of the oma because its membership was comprised of the entire Board of Regents. Thus, any convening of the committee at which a quorum of its members was present or participated for the purpose of deliberating toward or rendering a decision on the selection of a president, was required by the act to be open to the public unless it fell within a § 8 closed-session exemption. See OAG, 1977-1978, No 5183, pp 21, 40 (March 8, 1977).

 Section 8(f) provides that a public body may meet in closed session
[t]o- review the specific contents of an application for employment or appointment to a public office if the candidate requests that the application remain confidential. However, all interviews by a public body for employment or appointment to a public office shall be held in an open meeting pursuant to this act.

 The act defines a "decision” of a public body subject to the open meetings requirement as
a determination, action, vote, or disposition upon a motion, proposal, recommendation, resolution, order, ordinance, bill, or measure on which a vote by members of a public body is required and by which a public body effectuates or formulates public policy. [MCL 15.262(d); MSA 4.1800(12)(d). Emphasis added.]

 To conform with the oma’s requirements, after reviewing the twelve applications in the closed meeting, the board could have created an advisory committee composed of a subquorum of regents to recommend from that list, a number of finalists for the position. As noted above, the advisory committee could conduct private interviews with the candidates and meet in closed forums to facilitate their recommendation process.

 MCL 15.263(10); MSA 4.1800(13X10) provides that the act "does not apply to a meeting which is a social or chance gathering or conference not designed to avoid this act.”

 See, for example, Brown deposition, p 60 and Roach deposition, p 9.

 Brown deposition, p 44.

 Id.

 A public body may meet in a closed session even after a public interview to evaluate the candidate’s application, although the purpose behind the exemption, confidentiality, no longer exists at that point. Wernet, supra at 1042.

 To read the oma in the way the plaintiff suggests would require that every person involved in the procedure conduct a public meeting to discuss each thought process. It is difficult indeed to define a "public purpose” in the disclosure of all 250 names.

 Section 8(f) provides that a public body may meet in closed session
[t]o review the specific contents of an application for employment or appointment to a public office if the candidate requests that the application remain confidential. However, all interviews by a public body for employment or appointment to a public office shall be held in an open meeting pursuant to this act.

 New York and Chicago were two such axis cities.