Court Opinion

ID: 9705285
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:01:19.504271+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:09.636283
License: Public Domain

*800WILLIAM A. BABLITCH, J.
¶ 33. (concurring). You are a private citizen. There is a great deal of personal information about you, your background, and your family in a document that is stored in a public office. Some of that information, if publicly released, is highly embarrassing. Some is potentially harmful to you and your family. Unknown to you, a request is made for that document. The custodian decides the document should be released under the open records law. Should you have the right to be notified and heard before the custodian releases the document? Should you have the right to have a neutral third party review the custodian's decision? The dissent says no. The majority says yes. I agree with thé majority and write only to address the dissent.
¶ 34. The basic principle is fairness. Is it fair to deny a person who is about to have facts about his or her life revealed to the public the right to be heard and the right to have that decision reviewed? Is it fair to give the requester of that information the right to appeal if the request is denied (as provided by Wis. Stat. § 19.35(4)(b)), but not allow the subject of that request the same right?
¶ 35. Although the majority does not raise the issue to a constitutional dimension, I believe the lack of fundamental fairness raises due process issues.
The root requirement of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is " 'that an individual be given an opportunity for a hearing before he [or she] is deprived of any significant protected interest.' " Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 542 (1985) (footnote omitted). The government must provide notice and some kind of hearing before it can lawfully deprive anyone of life, liberty, or property. By requiring the government to *801follow appropriate procedures, the Due Process Clause promotes fairness in such decisions. Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 331 (1986).
In his classic statement, Justice Brandéis characterized "the right to be let alone ..." as the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by a civilized society. See Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting). In Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U.S. 433, 434 (1971), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a protectable liberty interest is implicated "[w]here a person's good name, reputation, honor, or integrity is at stake because of what the government is doing to him...." Id. at 437.
Woznicki v. Erickson, 202 Wis. 2d 178, 196, 549 N.W.2d 699 (1996) (Bablitch, J. concurring).
¶ 36. The dissent does not speak to the issue of fairness. It speaks only to the issue of efficiency: it takes too long, says the dissent, to allow the person to object, to allow the person to appeal.
¶ 37. There is, admittedly, a tension between the interests sought to be protected by the majority opinion and the dissenting opinion.
¶ 38. The majority seeks to protect the interests of privacy, of personal reputation, of individual safety. The dissent seeks to protect the right of the public to know. The majority seeks to reconcile both interests. The dissent completely and unnecessarily sacrifices privacy, reputational, and safety interests in the name of efficiency.
¶ 39. Efficiency, the dissent says, trumps all.
¶ 40. Pencils have erasers. Courts allow appeals. Administrative decisions are reviewed. All because we recognize the inevitability of human error. Judicial review is one of the fundamental underpinnings of our Constitution. It protects against error. It protects the *802individual against unnecessary intrusion of government into our private lives. The dissent, in its interpretation of the open records law, does not stop this intrusion, it fosters it.
¶41. Custodians of public records are human. And humans make mistakes. Witness the case of Monfils v. Charles, 216 Wis. 2d 323, 575 N.W.2d 728 (Ct. App. 1998). An anonymous call comes to the police department warning of an impending theft. The call is taped. The thief requests the tape. The custodian of the tape releases it to him. Monfils is later found brutally murdered. The alleged thief, and some colleagues, are convicted of murder. In retrospect, the release of the tape was a tragic mistake.
¶ 42. Or witness the case of Weiss v. City of Milwaukee, 208 Wis. 2d 95, 559 N.W.2d 588 (1997). Ms. Weiss requested that her residential information be kept confidential because of her fear of her abusive husband and his abusive and threatening telephone calls. He called the city, falsely identified himself, and requested the residential information, including the telephone number. The custodian of the record provided it to him. Subsequently, she was regularly telephoned at work by her husband, informing her he now knew her home address and telephone number, and that he would kill her and their two children. Her awareness that this was true, and her then existing financial inability to change her residence, caused her severe emotional distress. The release of the information sought was a tragic mistake.
¶ 43. These cases underline two basic realities: 1) not all requesters of public records are benign, public spirited citizens; and 2) custodians of public records make mistakes. Those mistakes can have tragic consequences. In Monfils and Weiss, great physical and *803emotional harm resulted. We can only guess at the harm done to privacy, reputational, or safety interests in other cases when custodians make a mistake.
¶ 44. Total efficiency, i.e., the immediate release of a document, the dissent says, is necessary to maintain an effective open records law. I disagree for two reasons. First, many public records requests do not involve personnel at all, such as requests for minutes, government contracts, and the like. They are not affected by the majority decision at all. Second, adequate measures can be taken by this court, or the legislature, to assure a prompt review. The delay in this case could, in the future, be greatly ameliorated. Ways can be found to speed appeals, to accommodate all interests.
¶ 45. There are times when efficiency must be sacrificed for greater principles. If efficiency were the only sought after objective, we would scarcely have chosen democracy as our form of government, we would scarcely have chosen our constitution to be our guiding force. Efficiency is not always the lodestar of human achievement.
¶ 46. I prefer the road chosen by the majority opinion. Both constitutionally and statutorily, it is the correct road. It does not deny the information outright, as the dissent denies completely the right to be heard; it merely delays it. And delay seems a small price to pay for the interests that remain protected.
¶ 47. I j oin the maj ority opinion.
¶ 48. I am authorized to state that Justices DONALD W. STEINMETZ, JON P. WILCOX, and N. PATRICK CROOKS join this concurrence.