County of York v. Pennsylvania Office of Open Records

13 A.3d 594, 2011 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 66
CourtCommonwealth Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedFebruary 16, 2011
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 13 A.3d 594 (County of York v. Pennsylvania Office of Open Records) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
County of York v. Pennsylvania Office of Open Records, 13 A.3d 594, 2011 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 66 (Pa. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinion

OPINION BY

Judge PELLEGRINI.

Ted Czech (Requester) appeals from the order of the Court of Common Pleas of York County (trial court) reversing the final determination of the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records (OOR), which held that Section 708(b)(18) of the Righb-to-Know Law (RTKL)2 required the County of York (County) to release destination addresses or cross-street information with its 911 time response logs.

[595]*595Requester, a reporter for The York Daily Record, submitted a right-to-know request to the County seeking copies of “time response logs from York County 911 for December 2008 and January and February 2009 with addresses included, i.e., where the units dispatched were headed.” (Reproduced Record (R.R.) at 3a). By letter dated April 14, 2009, the County informed Requester that his request was being denied to the extent that he requested destination addresses. According to the letter, the County defined time response logs as including only the following information:

The time the call was received by the 911 Center
The time the dispatcher contacted or dispatched the appropriate agency for response
The time the appropriate agency responded
The time the appropriate agency arrived on the scene
The time the appropriate agency went available

(R.R. at 4a). Requester was told to inform the County if he still wished to receive copies of the time response logs without addresses. The County sent Requester a follow-up letter dated April 15, 2009, stating simply that “[t]he section of the new [RTKL] that applies to time logs can be found at Section 708(18)(sic).”3 (R.R. at 5a).

Requester filed an appeal with the OOR to which he attached a copy of an alleged time response log from Lancaster County containing addresses. Requester also alleged in his appeal that the County’s Department of Emergency Services maintained an incident status page on the internet containing destination address information. The OOR invited both parties to submit additional information in support of their positions, and the County submitted the affidavit of Cindy Dietz (Director Dietz), its 911 Director. In that affidavit, Director Dietz stated, “I do not contend that I cannot produce addresses.” (R.R. at 9a). Rather, she insisted that time response logs did not include addresses because the alleged industry definition of the term did not include addresses. In support of this position, Director Dietz alleged that the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Emergency Number Association (PA NENA) defined the term exactly as the County did in its April 14, 2009 letter to Requester; however, she failed to include a citation to any document that would support this proposition. Instead, she simply claimed that the County was not required to produce the addresses under Section 708(b)(18) of the RTKL. The County also supplied the OOR with a copy of the House Legislative Journal from February 11, 2008, documenting a legislative discussion between Representative Fairchild and Representative King during which the latter stated that he believed addresses would not be included in the RTKL’s use of the term “time response logs.”

On May 22, 2009, the OOR issued a final determination granting Requester’s appeal. The OOR stated that pursuant to [596]*596Section 903 of the Law,4 if an agency denied a right-to-know request, it had to provide the specific reasons for the denial as well as a citation to supporting legal authority. The OOR determined that the County failed to provide specific reasons for the denial in this case. It also noted that Section 708(b)(18) of the RTKL exempted from disclosure records from County 911 centers except time response logs. Because time response logs were considered public records, the County was required to release all information considered part of the time response logs under the RTKL. According to the OOR, the County bore the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that addresses were exempt from public access, and it failed to meet this burden. The OOR found compelling the fact that the County included addresses in a similar record it made publicly available on the internet, and that Lancaster County 911 included addresses in its time response logs. It indicated that the legislature included time response logs in the definition of public records in order to allow the public to assess the efficiency of emergency responders. Without including the destination address or cross-street information in these records, it would be impossible to determine whether response times were within acceptable parameters, and the time data would be meaningless. The OOR found that addresses were part of the term “time response logs” and because the County admitted that it possessed destination addresses or cross-street information, it was required to release this information to Requester.

The County appealed to the trial court, which reversed the OOR’s decision. As a preliminary matter, the trial court held that the OOR’s determination that the County failed to provide specific reasons for denying the request was not supported by the evidence because the two letters the County sent to Requester provided the reason for denial of the request and a citation to supporting legal authority, thereby satisfying the statutory requirements found in Section 903 of the RTKL. As to the substance of the case, the trial court found that the County did not have to release the destination addresses because they were not part of the definition of time response log. Because the RTKL did not provide a definition of the term “time response logs,” the court had to look to the rules of statutory construction to determine its meaning. The trial court held that the term qualified as a technical word or phrase because it was used in the RTKL specifically in the context of 911 records.5 The trial court noted that the only evidence of what this term consisted of was the legislative discussion and PA NENA’s definition as provided by the [597]*597County, neither of which included addresses or cross streets.6 For these reasons, the trial court found that the OOR’s conclusion that the term “time response logs” included addresses was erroneous, reversed the final determination of the OOR and sustained the County’s appeal. This appeal followed.7

On appeal, Requester first argues that the trial court erred in holding that the County had not waived all objections to production of the time response logs and address information because it failed to meet its statutory requirements as outlined in Section 903 of the RTKL. Pursuant to Section 903, the County was required to provide a written denial to Requester containing the specific reasons for denial and a citation to supporting legal authority. We agree with the trial court that the two denial letters, taken as a whole, satisfy these statutory requirements. The initial letter informed Requester that the addresses were not part of the County’s definition of time response logs. Simply because Requester did not agree with the County’s definition of time response logs does not mean the County failed to provide a reason for denial.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
13 A.3d 594, 2011 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 66, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/county-of-york-v-pennsylvania-office-of-open-records-pacommwct-2011.