International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Local 21, AFL-CIO, et al. v. The Superior Court of Alameda County (Contra Costa Newspapers, Inc., et al.

This case presents the question whether the names and salaries of public
employees earning $100,000 or more per year, including peace officers, are
exempt from public disclosure under the California Public Records Act (Gov.
Code, § 6250 et seq.).1 The Court of Appeal concluded they are not, because
"well-established norms of California public policy and American public
employment exclude public employee names and salaries from the zone of financial privacy protection." For the reasons explained below, we affirm the
judgment of the Court of Appeal.

I.

Reporters employed by Contra Costa Newspapers, Inc. (the Newspapers)
requested under the California Public Records Act (the Act) that the City of
Oakland (the City) provide them with the names, job titles, and gross salaries of all
city employees who earned $100,000 or more in fiscal year 2003-2004, including
those individuals whose base salary equaled or exceeded that amount and those
who earned a lower base salary but were paid $100,000 or more because of
overtime work. The City agreed to disclose salary and overtime information for
each job classification, but refused to provide salary information linked to
individual employees, claiming that individually identified salary information is
exempt from disclosure. The Newspapers sought a writ of mandate in the superior
court to compel the City to disclose the requested salary records.

The City's refusal was a departure from its past practice. At least during
the years 1996 through 2003, the City's personnel director disclosed the names,
job titles, and salaries of all city employees, and this information was published in
a local newspaper. The City changed its policy in May 2004, citing as factors
supporting this decision (1) two appellate court decisions that recognized a privacy
right in public employee salary information (Teamsters Local 856 v. Priceless,
LLC (2003) 112 Cal.App.4th 1500 (Priceless) and City of Los Angeles v. Superior
Court (2003) 111 Cal.App.4th 883 (City of Los Angeles)); (2) increased concerns
regarding financial privacy; and (3) strong opposition to its prior policy from two
unions that represented city employees. In addition, because the City has a meritbased
compensation system, it concluded that disclosing the salaries of public
employees by name each year would permit members of the public to construct a performance evaluation of each employee by calculating the percentage increase
in his or her salary from year to year, which would invade the employees' privacy.

The superior court granted leave to intervene to two employee unions, the
International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Local 21 (Local
21) and the Oakland Police Officers Association (the Police Officers Association).
The superior court granted the Newspapers' petition and ordered the City to
disclose the requested salary information. The court concluded that the City and
the intervening unions had failed to establish that city employees who earn
$100,000 or more have any protected privacy interest in information related to
their salary, and found that such salary information consistently had been
disclosed in the past, both by the City and by federal, state, and other local
governments. Although the City and some other cities recently had refused to
disclose individually identified salary information, the court concluded that these
refusals appeared to reflect "uncertainty about the proper interpretation of the
[Act] in light of recent court decisions."

The superior court also concluded that, even assuming a privacy interest
existed, that interest is outweighed by the public interest in disclosure. The court
found "extremely speculative" the fears expressed by two declarants that identity
fraud and unwanted solicitations would ensue in the event information disclosing
their salaries were to be released. Furthermore, the superior court found, the
evidence presented by the Newspapers supports their contention that disclosure of
the names of employees in connection with their individual salaries is "in many
cases necessary to disclose inefficiency, favoritism, nepotism, and fraud with
respect to the government's use of public funds for employee salaries." The court
also rejected the Police Officers Association's contention that a different result is
required under Penal Code sections 832.7 and 832.8 with regard to its members
because those statutes render peace officer personnel records confidential, the court concluding that salary information is not included within the definition of
"personnel records" under the latter statute.

The City chose not to appeal from the judgment rendered by the superior
court. Local 21 and the Police Officers Association (collectively, the Unions)
filed a petition for writ of mandate in the Court of Appeal. After issuing an order
to show cause, that court denied the Unions' petitions. The Unions then
successfully sought review in this court.

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Openness in government is essential to the functioning of a democracy.
"Implicit in the democratic process is the notion that government should be
accountable for its actions. In order to verify accountability, individuals must
have access to government files. Such access permits checks against the arbitrary
exercise of official power and secrecy in the political process." (C.B.S., Inc. v.
Block (1986) 42 Cal.3d 646, 651, fn. omitted (Block).) In adopting the Act, the
Legislature declared that "access to information concerning the conduct of the
people's business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in this
state." (§ 6250.) As the result of an initiative adopted by the voters in 2004, this
principle is now enshrined in the state Constitution: "The people have the right of
access to information concerning the conduct of the people's business, and
therefore, . . . the writings of public officials and agencies shall be open to public
scrutiny." (Cal. Const., art. I, § 3, subd. (b)(1).)

The Legislature has been "mindful of the right of individuals to privacy."
(§ 6250.) Set forth in the Act are numerous exceptions to the requirement of
public disclosure, many of which are designed to protect individual privacy. (See § 6254.)2 In addition, a catchall exception applies if "on the facts of the particular
case the public interest served by not disclosing the record clearly outweighs the
public interest served by disclosure of the record." (§ 6255, subd. (a).) Unless
one of the exceptions stated in the Act applies, the public is entitled to access to
"any writing containing information relating to the conduct of the public's
business owned, used, or retained by any state or local agency." (§ 6252, subd.
(e); § 6253, subd. (a).)

The parties agree that the records at issue meet the definition of public
records contained in the Act. (§ 6252, subd. (d); § 6253, subd. (a).) The records
therefore must be disclosed unless one of the statutory exceptions applies. The
party seeking to withhold public records bears the burden of demonstrating that an
exception applies. (See § 6255.) At issue here is the exemption for "[p]ersonnel,
medical or similar files, the disclosure of which would constitute an unwarranted
invasion of personal privacy." (§ 6254, subd. (c).) The Unions contend that the
salaries of named public employees are "personnel . . . or similar files" and that
their disclosure constitutes an "unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" under
this exception.

We need not decide whether the records of a public entity's payroll
expenditures constitute "personnel . . . or similar files" because, assuming for
purposes of discussion that they do, the exemption does not apply; the disclosure
here does not constitute an "unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." (§ 6254,
subd. (c).) This exemption requires us to balance two competing interests, both of
which the Act seeks to protect - the public's interest in disclosure and the individual's interest in personal privacy. Balancing these interests, we conclude
that disclosure of the salary information at issue in the present case would not
constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

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