Commonwealth, Department of Public Welfare v. Eiseman

106 A.3d 610, 630 Pa. 215

• Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: October 23, 2014
• Docket: 131 EAL 2014 (Granted)
• Status: Published

Opinion

ORDER

PER CURIAM.

AND NOW, this 23rd day of October, 2014, the Petition for Allowance of Appeal is GRANTED. The issues are:

(1) Where Section 708(c) of the Right-[t]o-Know Law specifically provides that a “financial record” is not exempt from disclosure on the basis that it contains a “trade secret” or “confidential proprietary information,” is this explicit provision nullified by the earlier-enacted Pennsylvania Uniform Trade Secrets Act?

(2) When public funds are funneled through middlemen before reaching their intended beneficiaries, are the records documenting this flow of public funds “financial records” required to be disclosed under the current version of the Right-[t]o-Know Law, as they were under the prior version of the law?

(3) Are historical rates paid by Medicaid managed-care organizations (MCOs) “confidential proprietary information” and “trade secrets,” when the rates from one year do not reveal the rates for future years, and when most of the MCOs have already disclosed such rates to a subcontractor who negotiates rates with their competitors?

The Prothonotary shall establish parallel briefing tracks for this case and Dental Benefit Providers, Inc. v. Eiseman, No. 132-34 EAL 2014, and the two cases, though not consolidated, shall be listed for argument at the same Court session.