Court Opinion

ID: 9737245
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:19:59.736551+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:57.567310
License: Public Domain

Dooley, J.,
dissenting. Respectfully, I dissent from Part II of the majority opinion. It is black letter law that evidence which is covered by an evidentiary privilege cannot be admitted into evidence, see V.R.E. 501, or discovered, see V.R.C.P. 26(b)(1). Evidentiary privileges apply in administrative proceedings. See 3 V.S.A. § 810(1). We held in State v. Roy, 151 Vt. 17, 32, 557 A.2d 884, 893 (1989), that:
The specific records that the defendant requested are made confidential by 20 V.S.A § 1923(d). There is no exception in the statute for use of the records in court proceedings. It is clear that the intent of the statute is that the records not be subject to disclosure except for the statutory purposes. Thus, the statute creates a form of evidentiary privilege in a court proceeding. See Camp v. Howe, 132 Vt. 429, 433, 321 A.2d 71, 73 (1974); V.R.E. 501.
There is also no exception in the statute for administrative or personnel grievance proceedings. Thus, the statute creates an evidentiary privilege with respect to those proceedings as well.
Up to this point, the majority and I appear to agree on the relevant law. We part company, however, when we address our power to allow discovery despite the statutory privilege — the majority holds we can and should allow the discovery; I would hold that we cannot, whatever may be our policy preferences.
The majority suggests two ways around the privilege. First, it holds that we can implement our “reluctance to interfere with the truth seeking function of litigation” through judicially-created exceptions to absolute privileges. Certainly, we can do that in instances where we have created, or are being asked to create, the privilege at common *246law, as in the two instances cited by the majority. In re Inquest Proceedings, 165 Vt. 549, 551, 676 A.2d 790, 792-93 (1996) (mem.); Douglas v. Windham Superior Ct., 157 Vt. 34, 40, 597 A.2d 774, 777-78 (1991). Despite our policy preferences, however, we have no power to override the Legislature’s definition of the scope of a privilege. See State v. Henneberry, 558 N.W.2d 708, 710 (Iowa 1997) (“The creation of an exception to the statutory privilege is solely within the province of the legislature, and not the judiciary.”). Here, the Legislature has not made an exception for court or administrative proceedings.
The second way is taken from State v. Roy. Roy was a criminal case in which the defendant wanted access to the personnel records of the arresting officer to determine whether he had been disciplined in the past for using excessive force in an arrest. We recognized in Roy that although the privileged nature of the disciplinary file prohibited defendant’s access as a matter of state law, it did not necessarily overcome his sixth amendment compulsory process right to present evidence in his favor as developed in Pennsylvania v. Ritchie, 480 U.S. 39 (1987). Roy, 151 Vt. at 32-35, 557 A.2d at 894-95.
Ritchie was also a criminal case in which the defendant was charged with sexually assaulting his daughter and sought access to records of the state child protection agency relating to a prior report of sexual abuse by the defendant against the victim. The records were covered by a statutory evidentiary privilege, but the Court held that the defendant’s right to present evidence in his favor could overcome the privilege if the trial court found the evidence material to the defendant’s guilt or punishment. See id. at 55-58. To make this determination, the Court held, the information should be submitted to the trial court for in camera inspection. See id. at 60.
For a variety of reasons, we held in Roy that Ritchie did not require even an in camera inspection of the personnel file in that case. 151 Vt. at 34-35, 557 A.2d at 894-95. We added, however, that “[w]e do not exclude the possibility that a defendant could have access to internal investigation files in a proper case and in a proper manner.” Id. at 35, 557 A.2d at 895. The majority has taken this phrase out of context to justify access to the personnel file in this case.
The phrase related solely to the sixth amendment right, as explicated in Ritchie, that would require access to the privileged material as a matter of federal constitutional law. The Ritchie rationale is applicable only to criminal cases. There is no similar constitutional right to present favorable evidence in a civil ease. See Gilbert v. Superior Ct., 238 Cal. Rptr. 220, 227-28 (Ct. App. 1987); Giesing v. *247Blefeld, 2001 WL 56437, *3 (Conn. Super. Ct. 2001); V.B.T. v. Family Servs. of W. Pa., 705 A.2d 1325, 1335 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1998). There is no due process right to discovery in a civil case or administrative proceeding. See Soc’y of Lloyd’s v. Ashenden, 233 F.3d 473, 480 (7th Cir. 2000); Silverman v. Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n, 549 F.2d 28, 33 (7th Cir. 1977) (administrative proceeding). The majority has articulated no constitutional right of access to the personnel information that would allow the Board or this Court to override the statutory privilege.
Even if we were to somehow apply Ritchie by analogy, I cannot agree that we can uphold the broad order of the Board in these circumstances. Although Danforth alleged that the charges against her, and the decision to terminate her, were motivated by gender discrimination and retaliation for grievance and whistleblowing activity, she made no factual showing that there was evidence of lack of uniformity in disciplinary sanctions that would be shown by the IAU records. She has not alleged that any other officer was ever disciplined for conduct even remotely similar to that alleged against her. Her counsel admitted in his argument before this Court that he had no such evidence and shouldn’t be expected to have it until he examined the records. Thus, the subpoena request was a pure fishing expedition, hoping counsel would find fish in the IAU sea.
In Ritchie, the Supreme Court tailored its remedy to the interests involved and did not allow access to privileged information merely in the hope of discovering helpful information:
A defendant’s right to discover exculpatory evidence does not include the unsupervised authority to search through the Commonwealth’s files____[T]his court has never held — even in the absence of a statute restricting disclosure — that a defendant alone may make the determination as to the materiality of the information____In the typical case where a defendant makes only a general request for exculpatory material under Brady v. Maryland, ... it is the State that decides which information must be disclosed.
Ritchie, 480 U.S. at 59 (internal citations omitted). Thus, at a maximum, Ritchie supports only that a party can require the adjudicatory body to conduct an in camera inspection to determine the materiality of the privileged information, and not that the party can make that materiality decision. The Board failed to impose that limit here.
*248I think, however, there is a more important requirement that the Board ignored. The majority of courts that have addressed the issue have required a threshold showing of some degree of relevance before allowing a defendant to pierce a privilege. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Bishop, 617 N.E.2d 990, 995 n.5 (Mass. 1993) (listing cases from other states that have required an initial showing of relevance). Thus, the Bishop court required that the defendant “advance, in good faith, at least some factual basis which indicates how the privileged records are likely to be relevant to an issue in the case____” Id. at 996-97 (emphasis added). This is consistent with our holding in Douglas v. Windham Superior Court that an in camera inspection can be ordered only based on some showing of need. 157 Vt. at 43-44, 597 A.2d at 779-80.
These requirements to protect the confidentiality of the information are particularly critical in a case like this where the litigant seeks extensive privileged records of many persons. Danforth’s position is that all state police disciplinary records generated since 1995 should become public so that she can search through them to try to make a case. Even the Board’s narrowing of the request will make a substantial part of the disciplinary records public. I recognize that names will be redacted from the records, but I share the concern of the State that in a small state like Vermont the redaction of the names is an inadequate, and likely ineffective, protection of privacy.
Danforth has made no showing of likely materiality, and the Board has failed to impose restrictions that will protect the confidentiality of the information in the IAU records. Even if I believed that the Board could override the careful and specific confidentiality protection contained in 20 V.S.A. § 1923(d) in any case, I cannot endorse the way it has done so in this case.
I am authorized to state that Justice Morse joins in this dissent.