Court Opinion

ID: 9617783
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:01:10.961675+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:16.729832
License: Public Domain

Johnson, J.
(dissenting) — Misinterpreting RCW 42.17.314, the majority permits the very activity the statute was expressly designed to prohibit. The records here were released without prior statutory compliance. The evidence suggests law enforcement authorities circumvented the statutory requirements by suggesting to public utility district (PUD) officials that they turn over specific information. Under the majority’s approach, PUD officials could eviscerate the statutory procedures and turn over all protected records by "volun*405tarily” sending law enforcement officials a monthly "printout” or "evaluation”. This is patently absurd and offends, at the very least, statutory requirements.
I agree with the majority that the Legislature designed RCW 42.17.31456 to prohibit "general 'fishing expeditions’ ” by government authorities. Majority, at 393. As the majority correctly notes, a general fishing expedition occurs when law enforcement officials target a particular person for investigation and search utility records "without having a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity”. Majority, at 393. However, by misapplying RCW 42.17.314 to the facts here, the majority does away with this statute’s core requirement of a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity before the records are disclosed.
RCW 42.17.314 imposes three distinct requirements on law enforcement authorities seeking access to public utility district customer records. First, the authority must suspect that "the particular person to whom the records pertain has committed a crime”. Second, the authority must have "a reasonable belief that the records could determine or help determine whether the suspicion might be true”. Third, the authority must provide the public utility district with a "written statement” setting forth its suspicion and belief. Only after these three requirements have been met may the public utility district allow a law enforcement authority to inspect or obtain copies of customer records. RCW 42.17.314 is explicit and clear: if these requirements are not satisfied, the information obtained is inadmissible in any criminal proceeding.
*406The majority argues law enforcement authorities are not required to articulate a specific suspicion of particular illegal conduct. Majority, at 391. While this statement is true, it does not address the issue at hand. The question is whether RCW 42.17.314 requires a law enforcement authority to submit a written statement setting forth the statutorily required suspicion and belief before it may receive information contained in customer records maintained by a public utility district. The statute clearly requires such a written statement before the records can be divulged.
In this case there was no written statement before statutorily protected information was divulged to a law enforcement authority. Indeed, there is no indication the Clallam County Drug Task Force had any prior suspicion the Max-fields had committed a crime. The record establishes without question that the PUD official, an employee, treasurer, and comptroller of the Clallam County Public Utility District (PUD), had an arrangement with the Drug Task Force to provide them with information. Information as to "suspicious activities” was regularly turned over to law enforcement authorities. Undoubtedly, this information was provided because the Drug Task Force had told the PUD employee the type of activity for him to report.
The majority’s discussion of In re Rosier, 105 Wn.2d 606, 717 P.2d 1353 (1986) and the subsequent amendment to RCW 42.17.314 does not resolve the question presented here. Rather, the answer is provided specifically and explicitly by the statute, which recognizes a privacy interest in public utility records that cannot be infringed upon without statutory compliance. That privacy interest is held by the PUD’s customers, not the PUD. It makes little legal difference whether police directly or indirectly solicit PUD records in contravention of the statute.
RCW 42.17.314 does not prevent law enforcement personnel from receiving information from public utility district employees who observe suspicious activities. Law enforcement authorities are prevented, however, from conducting fishing expeditions in PUD records. A law enforcement *407authority may not circumvent the protections in RCW 42.17.314 by arranging for other government employees to conduct fishing expeditions on its behalf. Such an arrangement need not be formal or well organized to contravene RCW 42.17.314; all that is required is an arrangement initiated or approved of by law enforcement authorities whereby they predictably receive confidential information without having first to comply with the requirements in RCW 42.17.314. Because the PUD employee and the Drug Task Force had such an arrangement, I dissent. The evidence resulting from this violation of RCW 42.17.314 should have been suppressed.
Utter and Madsen, JJ., concur with Johnson, J.
Reconsideration denied February 1, 1995.

RCW 42.17.314 reads as follows:
"A law enforcement authority may not request inspection or copying of records of any person, which belong to a public utility district or a municipally owned electrical utility, unless the authority provides the public utility district or municipally owned electrical utility with a written statement in which the authority states that it suspects that the particular person to whom the records pertain has committed a crime and the authority has a reasonable belief that the records could determine or help determine whether the suspicion might be true. Information obtained in violation of this rule is inadmissible in any criminal proceeding.”