Court Opinion

ID: 9535737
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:52:24.745612+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:19.262122
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mb. Justice Pomeboy:
I find it ironical that the Court, especially at this particular time in our national experience, through a restrictive and erroneous reading of legislative acts, should bar a large metropolitan newspaper from govern*167ment records of disbursement of public monies to private individuals. Since my reading of these same statutes cannot be reconciled with that of the majority, I must respectfully dissent.
The starting point in answering a question involving access to government-controlled information in Pennsylvania is the Act of June 21, 1957, P. L. 390, 65 P.S. §66.1 et seq., popularly called the “Kight-To-Know Act,” which provides broadly that “[ejvery public record of an agency shall at reasonable times be open for examination and inspection by any citizen of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania” 65 P.S. §66.2. That statute defines the term “public record” in terms clearly broad enough to encompass the information sought here by The Inquirer.1 Within that provision, however, there are stated four exceptions:
“[T]he term ‘public records’—
“1* shall not mean any report, communication or other paper, the publication of which would disclose the institution, progress or result of an investigation undertaken by an agency in the performance of its official duties, except those reports filed by agencies pertaining to safety and health in industrial plants;
“2* shall not include any record, document, material, exhibit, pleading, report, memorandum, or other *168paper, access to or the publication of which is prohibited, restricted or forbidden by statute law or order or decree of court,
“3* [shall not include any record, document material, exhibit, pleading, report, memorandum or other paper, access to or the publication of which] would operate to the prejudice or impairment of a person’s reputation or personal security.
“4* [shall not include any record, document, material, exhibit, pleading, report, memorandum or other paper, access to or the publication of which] would result in the loss by the Commonwealth or any of its political subdivisions or commissions or State or municipal authorities of Federal funds, excepting therefrom however the record of any conviction for any criminal act. 65 P.S. §66.1(2).”
The Commonwealth argued in this Court that exemptions (1) through (4) inclusive apply to bar The Inquirer from access. I note, however, that no argument was presented with respect to exception (1) in the Commonwealth Court; under settled principles this Court should not decide it on this appeal. Although the majority states that exceptions (1) and (3) “are equally persuasive in foreclosing the appellees’ contentions,” Opinion of the Court, ante at 160 n.8, it does not decide the applicability of either exception. I will follow suit and not discuss (1), (3) or (4); suffice it to say that I do not find them either persuasive or applicable.
The crux of the matter then is the applicability of exception (2) : Is there a statute which prohibits access to or publication of the information sought by The Inquirer? As the majority correctly determines, there are two sections of the Public Welfare Code of 1967 which are relevant:
*169“§404. Regulations for protection of information
“ (a) The Department shall have the power to make and enforce regulations:
“(1) to protect the names of applicants for and recipients of public assistance from improper publication, and to restrict the use of information furnished to other agencies or persons to purposes connected with the administration of public assistance. Upon request by any adult resident of the Commonwealth, the department may furnish the address and amount of assistance with respect to persons about whom inquiry is made; but, information so obtained shall not be used for commercial or political purposes', and, no information shall be furnished regarding any person’s application for, or receipt of, medical assistance for the aged.
“§425. Furnishing information
Upon request by any adult resident of the Commonwealth, any county board shall furnish the address and amount of assistance with respect to persons receiving assistance about whom inquiry is made, but such information shall not be used for commercial or political purposes.” Act of June 13,1967, P. L. 33, art. IY, §§404, 425, 62 P.S. §§404, 425 (emphasis added). The Commonwealth argues that these sections only provide for disclosure of addresses and amounts of assistance received by the public welfare recipient, and do not permit the disclosure of names. In addition the Commonwealth argues that the attempt by the appellees to comply with the apparent statutory requirement that they furnish names—appellees presented a Philadelphia telephone directory—cannot be regarded as sufficient.2 As *170background for considering these arguments, it is necessary to develop the history of sections 404 and 425 of the Public Welfare Code, significant parts of which the Court’s opinion disregards.
In 1939 our Legislature enacted the following provision in the then Welfare Code:
“Section 7. Powers and Duties of County Boards of Assistance.
“Each county board of assistance shall have the power and its duty shall be:
“(o) To make available for inspection and examination during office hours, to any taxpayer, in such manner as the county board of assistance may prescribe, the names, addresses, and amounts of assistance granted to all persons then receiving general assistance.” Act of June 26, 1939, P. L. 1091 (emphasis added). This provision remained the statutory law of the Commonwealth for a period of fourteen years. Were the statute still framed in these terms it could not be argued that the information sought here would not be available.
In 1951 the federal Social Security Administration (precursor of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare) ruled that a similar provision in the Indiana Welfare Act did not conform to federal requirements in that it made available to the general public the names, addresses and amounts received by welfare recipients, and therefore the federal Administrator withheld federal funding of Indiana’s assistance programs. That ruling was upheld in Indiana v. Ewing, 99 F. Supp. 734 (D.D.C. 1951). Congress, however, almost immediately reacted to overrule the federal court decision by attaching to the Revenue Bill of 1951 what came to be known as the “Jenner Amendment”, and enacting it into law. It provided: “No state or any agency or political subdivision thereof shall be de*171prived of any grant-in aid or other payment to which it otherwise is or has become entitled pursuant to [various sections of the federal code] by reason of the enactment or enforcement by such State of any legislation prescribing any conditions under which public access may be had to records of the disbursement of any such funds or payments within such State, if such legislation prohibits the use of any list or names obtained through such access to such records for commercial or political purposes.” Act of October 20, 1951, c.521, tit. VI, §618, 65 Stat. 569, now codified at 42 U.S.C. §302 (historical note) (emphasis added). That legislation, having been prompted by a court decision invalidating the Indiana disclosure provisions, in effect gave Congressional sanction to a state statute which not only made such information available to public inspection, but which required the welfare officials to make lists and post them in the office of the county auditor.3
On November 8, 1951 the Administrator of the Social Security Administration circulated to each state office of welfare administration his State Letter No. 1664 containing the following interpretation of §618 of *172the Revenue Act of 1951 (Jenner Amendment) : “However, it must be noted that the congressional language was phrased so as not to go beyond permitting public access to such records. That is to say, the use in section 618 of the phrase ‘access may be had’ would seem to require that the public take the initiative in seeking access to and examining the records of disbursement and payment and that the State itself refrain from taking the initiative in general distribution to the public of such information by means of publication or otherwise.”
The Pennsylvania General Assembly in 1953 amended the 1939 provision on access to names, addresses and amounts (set out supra) so as to read as follows:
“Section 7. Powers and duties of County Boards of Assistance.
“Each county board of assistance shall have the power, and its duty shall be:
* * *
“(o) Upon request by any adult resident of the Commonwealth, to furnish the address and amount of assistance with respect to persons receiving assistance about whom inquiry is made, but such information shall not be used for commercial or political purposes.” Act of August 22, 1953, P. L. 1361 (emphasis added) .5 *173It is apparent that this amendment of 1953 was enacted in direct response to the Jenner Amendment, as interpreted by the Social Security Administration. It (1) directly tracked the Jenner Amendment’s language as to the “commercial or political” purpose restriction; and (2) it clearly placed upon the person making inquiry the obligation to suggest names to the county board of assistance, in response to which the board would inform the inquiring person whether or not the persons named were welfare recipients and, if so, where they lived and how much they received. In other words, the disclosure was now to be initiated by the person making the inquiry, and not by the Board.
In 1967 the Pennsylvania legislature enacted a consolidation and codification of the existing laws, Act of June 13, 1967, P. L. 31. The 1953 amendment, as set forth above, was the direct ancestor of sections 404 and 425 of the 1967 enactment, the first of which provides that the Department “may” provide the addresses of and amounts of assistance received by “persons about whom inquiry is made”, and the second of which provides that the county board “shall” do so.
(a) “Persons About Whom Inquiry Is Made”
The root question, of course, is whether the second exception to the definition of public record contained in the Bight-To-Know Act (i.e., those records “access to or the publication of which is prohibited, restricted or forbidden by statute law. . . .”) serves to bar The Inquirer (or any citizen of the Commonwealth, for that matter) from obtaining the information it here seeks. Having in mind the historical background detailed above concerning the disclosure of public assistance in*174formation under the Public Welfare Code of 1967, the inescapable conclusion is that there is no bar. It is clearly permissible under section 425 of that Code, for example, to discover the identity of a recipient of public assistance (by offering a name and receiving an affirmative response from the county board). The question becomes, then, what procedure must be followed to obtain the Information?
I think it beyond dispute that the only policy change reflected in the 1953 amendment to the Public Welfare Code was a legislative desire to comply with the drafting suggestions of the Administrator of the Social Security Administration, viz., that the initiative, the burden of inquiry as it were, be placed upon the interested citizen, and that the State itself refrain from taking the initiative of disclosure. If compliance with legislative policy were all that were required, appellees’ efforts to carry the burden of making inquiry should clearly suffice. A court, however, is not permitted to disregard statutory language which is “clear and free from all ambiguity” under the guise of pursuing the “spirit” of the statute. Statutory Construction Act of 1970, added by Act of December 6, 1972, P. L. 1482, §1921 (b). Here the statute (section 425) requires in clear language that the county board furnish the address and amount of assistance received by “persons about whom inquiry is made.” To take advantage of this provision, then, one must make inquiry about persons, that is to say, must furnish the board with names of people.
The statute makes no distinction whatever between, say, inquiry about ten persons and inquiry about a thousand or ten thousand. Nor does the history of the provision support such a limitation. The Inquirer in fact presented the county board with a Philadelphia telephone directory and demanded that the board indicate which persons listed therein were recipients of public *175assistance. It may well be that it would prove burdensome for the employees of the county board to seareh such a listing for the names of welfare recipients. The burden, however, was created by the Legislature when it empowered interested citizens to offer the board names of “persons about whom inquiry is made.” Obviously the statute requires the board’s employee to take the submitted name or names and search the county’s records.6
Seeing nothing in either the language or the policy of the statute which would in any way limit the number of persons about whom inquiry may be made at one time, I would hold that The Inquirer met the precondition of section 425 of the Public Welfare Code and is entitled to a response from the Philadelphia County Board of Public Assistance.
*176(b) “Not Be Used for Commercial or Political Purposes”
In a single paragraph and without citation to any authority, the .Court holds, although the issue is nowhere raised, that until The Inquirer shows to the contrary it must be taken that its purpose is commercial or political, and that it is thus not entitled to the information. We hare not heretofore had occasion to interpret the word “commercial” in the context of this section of the Public Welfare Code. Guidance may be had, however, from the analogous situation presented by a newspaper’s claim to privilege under the libel laws. In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 266, 11 L. Ed. 2d 686 (1964), the United States Supreme Court, in recognizing a conditional privilege arising under the First Amendment to publish defamatory material, was unimpressed by the argument that the newspaper-petitioner’s claim to protection was forfeited by the commercial nature of its activities: “That the Times was paid for publishing the advertisement is as immaterial in this connection as is the fact that newspapers and books are sold . . . [W]e hold that if the allegedly libelous statements would otherwise be constitutionally protected from the present judgment, they do not forfeit that protection because they were published in the form of a paid advertisement.” See also Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, Inc., 403 U.S. 29, 44 n.12, 29 L. Ed. 2d 296 (1971);7 Grove v. Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., 438 F. 2d 433 (3d Cir. 1971) (private subscription credit report of restricted distribution held not protected by New York Times Co. v. Sullivan); Baird v. *177Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., 416 Pa. 266, 285 A. 2d 166 (1971) (same).
While admittedly the content of the word “commercial” in the Welfare Code is not necessarily the same as when considered in the above First Amendment context, no policy appears which would cause us to hold that the “fact that newspapers . . . are sold” is critical to the problem before us and yet “immaterial” in the context of Times v. Sullivan. Undoubtedly the Legislature had in mind the obtaining and resale of such information to persons who would, for example, make the recipients of public assistance the focus of some sort of selling activity or some sort of political pressure.
There is thus no basis whatever on this record for us to hold that The Inquirer’s purpose is of such a crass pecuniary nature and is not a purpose normally associated with the operation of a newspaper. As the majority notes, there is a statutory penalty (six months’ imprisonment and/or $100 fine) for violation of the Department of Public Assistance’s regulation prohibiting commercial or political use of such information. See Department of Public Welfare Regulation 4143.43, 62 P.S. §483. Other sanctions may also be available. I should think that the Court’s hesitancy in permitting prior restraints would indicate that the proper approach to the question of purpose would be to permit The Inquirer access and punish it subsequently for misuse. That is, of course, the normal mode of enforcing statutorily proscribed modes of conduct under our system of law. That approach is, moreover, what the statute clearly contemplates. Its interdiction is not to the obtaining of the information with proscribed intent, but to the use of the information after obtaining it: “information so obtained shall not be used for commercial or political purposes. ” 62 P.S. §425. Clearly the stage of prevention of or punishment for misuse of *178information has not yet been reached, and indeed may never be.
(c) “Shall” or “May”
Section 404 of the Public Welfare Code provides that the Department of Public Assistance “may” disclose the addresses of and amounts of assistance received by persons about whom inquiry is made. Section 425 of the Code, on the other hand, provides that the county board “shall” make that same disclosure. The majority concludes in a footnote (Opinion of the Court at 153 n.4), again without the issue having been raised by any party, that the word “may” in section 404 should be read as empowering the Department to publish a regulation that the county board “shall not” make such disclosure, the mandate of section 425 to the contrary notwithstanding. This is said to be an in pari materia construction which gives effect to both provisions. Act of December 6, 1972, P. L. 1482, §1932. In my view, it is a wrenching of words to force a result directly contrary to the express provisions of the Code.
There is no major problem of construction presented by the permissive provision of one paragraph and the mandatory language of the other. The Department has discretion to make or not to make the disclosure. Presumably, the information sought would be more readily accessible at the county board level, the level at which the Department’s lower echelons and the recipients have direct contact, rather than at the higher state level. Thus the Department has been empowered to refuse, if it wishes, to deal with requests for information which is more readily available under mandatory procedures at the county board level.8 These are deliber*179atetly discrete provisions. T cannot agree with a construction which would read the word “may” as obliterating, by implication, a later appearing “shall.” Such an ignoring of the plain meaning of words is precisely what an in pari materia construction is designed to avoid.
(d) “Adult Resident”
The Court holds, without citation to authority and yet again without the question having been raised, that “no one would seriously suggest that the Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. is an ‘adult resident’ of Pennsylvania.” To the contrary, 1 do suggest, and seriously, that indeed the appellee corporation is an “adult resident” of this State and is entitled to the access provided by the two sections of the Public Welfare Code of 1967 here involved. The Legislature has directed that “unless the context clearly indicates otherwise,” the word “person” is to be taken to include a “corporation, partnership and association.” Statutory Construction Act of 1972, Act of December 6, 1972, P. L. 1482, §1991. That was also the rule at common law. Klein v. Tax Supers, 282 U.S. 19, 75 L. Ed. 140 (1930); McKinley v. Wheeler, 130 U.S. 630, 32 L. Ed. 1048 (1889). The word “citizen” has similarly been construed to include private corporations where the context required. Oneida v. County Forest Preserve Council v. Wehle, 309 N.Y. 152, 128 N.E. 2d 282 (1955); Sioux Falls Taxpayers Ass’n v. Sioux Falls, 69 S.D. 93, 7 N.W. 2d 136 (1942). And, of course, constitutional provisions employing the word “person” or “citizen” have been interpreted to include, when the occasion required it, private corporations. *180See, e.g., Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 69 L. Ed. 1070 (1925); Kentucky Finance Corp. v. Paramount Auto Exch. Corp., 262 U.S. 544, 67 L. Ed. 1112 (1923).
It would appear to me that an “adult resident” is a “person” who (or which) possesses two identifying attributes: (1) maturity, and (2) permanent location in Pennsylvania. The appellee Inquirer lacks neither quality, and therefore, in view of the legislative direction that we regard statutes as speaking to both artificial as well as natural persons “unless the context clearly indicates otherwise”, must be taken as meeting the requirements of the statute.
It seems to me quite incongruous for the Court to go out of its way to construe statutes regulating access to public records in such a way as to exclude newspapers. Public welfare today comprises 16% of the annual general fund budget of the Commonwealth. Even more so than in the 1930s when government first undertook direct relief, it is definitely big business, involving half a billion dollars of Pennsylvania taxpayers’ money and eight hundred thousand recipients.9 One may well ask who, if not the news media, would have incentive or resources to undertake an analysis of this area of the operation of our State government. The exclusion of newspapers from the sections of the Public Code of 1967 at issue here is tantamount to the exclusion of the public10
*181I am in agreement with that part of the opinion of the Court which holds that The Inquirer is not entitled under either our State’s constitution or under the federal constitution to compel production of the information it seeks here. I do wish to emphasize, however, that the Court has expressly and properly avoided deciding whether the disclosures sought by the appellees, were they permitted under the Right-To-Know Act, would violate constitutional rights of privacy of the recipients of public assistance. The majority is clearly wrong, however, when it says that “[t]he Legislature . . . wisely avoided this constitutional challenge.” For even under the majority’s interpretation of sections 404 and 425 of the Public Welfare Code of 1967, an “adult resident” can, by offering names, learn the identity of recipients of public assistance and the amounts thereof. His doing so would set the stage for constitutional confrontation on the privacy issue undecided by today’s opinion.
Mr. Chief Justice Jones joins in this dissenting opinion.

 “(2) ‘Publie Record’. Any account, vouchor or contract dealing with the receipt or disbursement of funds by an agency or its acquisition, use or disposal of services or of supplies, materials, equipment or other property and any minute, order or decision by an agency fixing the personal or property rights, privileges, immunities, duties or obligations of any person or group of persons. . . .” See McMullan v. Wohlgemuth, 444 Pa. 563, 567, 281 A. 2d 836 (1971) (“[T'Jhat definition is clearly broad enough to encompass the records sought here”).

 The numbers placed opposite each exception and the bracketed repetition of the phrase [shall not include . . . .] do not appear in the statute; I have added them to facilitate later discussion.

 Additionally, the Department of Public Assistance stipulated in the Commonwealth Court that “were the plaintiffs to submit to the [Department] voter registration lists or telephone directories of names, the Department would refuse to tell . . . which of those are on public assistance and how much they receive.” Appellees’ Supplemental Record at 3b.

 The House Conference Report on the Revenue Act of 1951, 2 U.S. Code Cong, and Admin. News, 82d Cong., 1st Sess. 2121, 2169, reads as follows: “Under this amendment [The Jenner Amendment], as agreed to by the conferees, the State of Indiana . . . will be entitled to receive its payment under the Social Security Act in the future and will also be entitled to receive any such payments which have been withheld because of the enactment and enforcement of the Indiana law.”
The Indiana statute in question in Indiana v. Ewing, supra, was never subsequently amended and remains in its 1951 form today. 10 Burns’ Indiana Stat. Ann. §52-1260. The restriction on “commercial or political use” which appeared in the Jenner Amendment was copied verbatim from the Indiana statute.

 The interpretation of the Jenner Amendment contained in State Letter No. 166 of November 8, 1951 remains the stated interpretation today. See 45 C.E.R. §205.50 (1972); HEW Handbook of Public Assistance Administration, Part IV, §7110.
*172It would appear that this interpretation was unnecessarily restrictive, turning as it did on the use by Congress of the passive voice (“access may be had”) and ignoring as it did the fact that Congress had by the Jenner Amendment sanctioned state legislation which not only did not have the state “refrain from taking the initiative”, but affirmatively required the state officials to prepare and post a list for public inspection.

 The title of this 1953 amendment to the Public Welfare Code recited as its purpose that of “authorizing the Department [of Public Assistance] and local boards to disclose the identity of recipients of assistance and amounts received.” I fail to understand how the Court can find in this 1953 amendment, with this recited purpose of disclosing the identity of recipients, the expression of a legisla*173tive intention to protect the names of welfare recipients. It is obvious that if the inquiring party suggests a name, and receives an affirmative response, he has ascertained the identity of a recipient.

 To lighten this chore when, as here, an inquiry is directed towards all persons within a large geographic area, the board might well permit the inquiring party to inspect lists of names, addresses and amounts of assistance received by persons in that area; such, indeed, is the normal procedure under the Right-To-Know Act, 65 P.S. §66.2.
As explained in the text, ante, the present versions of sections 404 and 425 of the Public Welfare Code of 1967 stem directly from the unsound attempt of the Social Security Administration, following enactment of the Jenner Amendment, to make an interpretation of that statute turn on Congressional use of the passive voice, “access may be had.” The amendment in 1953 to the Pennsylvania Welfare Code reflected nothing more than an attempt to gear the statutory provision permitting access to welfare records from the active voice (the Board of Assistance “shall . . . make available for inspection and examination . . . .”) into the passive voice (“upon request of any adult resident . . . .”). The difference between the active and passive voices is stylistic only, and it is not such as to change the result. There is thus nothing startling in the conclusion that the changed mode of procedure, while it places the initiative upon the person who inquires, does not in fact change the net product of ascertainable information.

 “We also intimate no view on tlie extent of constitutional protection, if any, for purely commercial communications made in tlie course of business. . . .” Rosenbloom, supra, 403 U.S. at 44 n.12 (emphasis added).

 The Department’s regulations do not forbid disclosure by county boards of tbe information in question. In fact, tbe applicable regulation provides that if tbe county board is satisfied that *179the purpose of an inquiry is not commercial or political and the person making the request is over 21, then “the address and amount of assistance . . . are disclosed . . . .” Pennsylvania Department of Public Assistance Regulations §4143.31 (emphasis added).

 Contributions from the federal government to public assistance programs in Pennsylvania total another half billion dollars.

 One is reminded of the high priority which Thomas Jefferson placed upon the right of the public to be informed by the press: “The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without news*181papers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Colonel Edward Carrington, January 16, 1787, quoted in J. Bartlett, Familiar Quotations 373b (1955).