Court Opinion

ID: 9762175
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:14:39.245931+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:31.410486
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice,
with whom NICHOLS and VIOLETTE, Justices, join dissenting.
I do not agree with the decision of the Court to require the disclosure of Reginald McDevitt’s personal tax return. McDevitt is under no duty to disclose unless his tax return is a “public record” within the meaning of the Maine Freedom of Access Act, 1 M.R.S.A. §§ 401-410 (1979). I reject as overbroad and exceeding the legislative purpose the Court’s mechanical interpretation of the words of the statute. Both the history and the circumstances surrounding this legislation demonstrate the absence of any such radical departure from the scope of the original “Right to Know Law.”
The legislative and judicial history of attempts to provide greater access to information concerning governmental activity has been chronicled by H.L. Cross in The People’s Right to Know: Legal Access to Public Records and Proceedings (1953). Cross, a Maine resident whose book title probably gave our original statute its popular name, served as a consultant to the Maine Joint Committee on Freedom of Information, which sponsored the original Freedom of Access Act, P.L.1959, ch. 219. He described the confusion that resulted from judicial reliance upon definitions of “public records” which were enacted or declared for purposes other than access, e.g., for compilation and preservation of records, for admissibility as evidence or for defining a crime of forgery, and called upon courts and legislatures to address the problem of defining the phrase specifically for the purpose of providing public access. He warned against the use of such limiting language as “required by law” or “recorded pursuant to law,” and advocated more liberal description of writings which “constitute a convenient, appropriate or customary method of discharging the duties of the office.” His emphasis throughout, however, was upon the nature of the record and its use, in fact, in state business.
Against this background the 99th Legislature enacted the predecessor of the present statute without any express definition of public records. The bill’s chief proponent thereafter reported to members of the Committee on Freedom of Information:
[A]s far as records are concerned ... in the past almost every ... agency or department has held it to be its own right to decide what records ... it will make public or will withhold.... This cannot be the case any more. We have the attorney general’s opinion and Harold Cross’ opinion that our law means that any record not specifically exempt by statute is now a public record....
Memorandum of Brooks W. Hamilton, Chairman, Maine Joint Committee on Freedom of Information, dated May 7,1959 (emphasis in original). Nowhere in the history of Maine’s legislative effort is there any suggestion that records other than those governmental in nature were within the reach of the statute.
The present language of section 402(3) was enacted by P.L.1975, ch. 483, § 3 and P.L.1975, ch. 623, § 1. The critical language upon which the plaintiffs rely, “or contains information relating to the transaction of public or governmental business,” was inserted as part of an omnibus “Errors and Inconsistencies” bill. Although the *425record indicates there was debate about the impact upon legislative documents and papers, there is no hint that legislators intended to sweep essentially personal papers into the public domain.
I agree with the opinion of the Court that the presence or absence of other public records is immaterial, although the plaintiffs make much of the absence of any other convenient source of information. If Reginald McDevitt’s tax return is a public record because it is “in the possession ... of ... [a] public official ... and ... contains information relating to the transactions of public ... business,” then so, too, is the tax return of any other public official who receives income in connection with his public duties. Even a private diary, assuming it contained information relating to the transaction of public business, would be subject to citizen inspection.
Common sense convinces me that an official’s personal tax return remains in the private as opposed to the public domain. An individual tax return is inherently private. It is simply not one of those records intended to be within the sweep of the legislature’s admittedly broad definition. The return relates to the personal obligation for payment of taxes, and bears only the most tenuous association to the transaction of public business. I would affirm the judgment of the Superior Court.