York v. Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corp.

408 S.W.3d 677, 2013 WL 4056182, 2013 Tex. App. LEXIS 9851
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedAugust 8, 2013
DocketNo. 03-12-00309-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 408 S.W.3d 677 (York v. Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
York v. Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corp., 408 S.W.3d 677, 2013 WL 4056182, 2013 Tex. App. LEXIS 9851 (Tex. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

OPINION

BOB PEMBERTON, Justice.

The Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation (TGSL) is a public non-profit corporation that is subject to both the Texas Open Meetings Act (OMA) and, with some specific exclusions not applicable here, the Texas Public Information Act (PIA). See Tex. Educ.Code §§ 57.01, .11 (regarding TGSL); see generally Tex. Gov’t Code §§ 551.001-146 (provisions of OMA), 552.001-.353 (provisions of PIA). In this appeal from a declaratory-judgment suit challenging an Attorney General’s open-records ruling, we consider the interplay between those two open-government guarantees as they impact public access to certain TGSL records.

On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court held that TGSL was required to disclose minutes from the open meetings of its board of directors, but could withhold certain documents and information that TGSL had attached to those minutes. The court further held that TGSL was required to disclose records relating to a wholly owned, for-profit subsidiary, but could withhold its “Strategic Plan” and “President’s Reports,” as well as pricing information contained in an application TGSL had submitted to the federal government. Additionally, the district court ruled that the requestor, Larry F. York, could not recover attorney’s fees.

TGSL, York, and the Attorney General each appeal the district court’s judgment. Essentially, TGSL argues that none of the records at issue were subject to disclosure, York urges that all of them were, and the Attorney General agrees with TGSL as to some of the records and with York as to the others. York further contends that he is entitled to attorney’s fees. We will affirm the district court’s judgment in part and reverse and render in part.

BACKGROUND

In 1979, the Texas Legislature created TGSL as a public non-profit corporation to administer a guaranteed student loan program “to enable qualified students to receive postsecondary education.” See Act of May 24, 1979, 66th Leg., R.S., ch. 706, §§ 57.01, .11, 1979 Tex. Gen. Laws 1711, 1711-12 (current version at Tex. Educ. Code §§ 57.01, .11). Since its inception, TGSL has offered student-loan information, products, and services to help students and families realize “their aspirations for education beyond high school.” See Tex. Educ.Code § 57.01 (prescribing policy goals of guaranteed student loan program). For example, TGSL is one of several guaranty agencies that administers the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) on behalf of the United States Department of Education (DOE). See 20 U.S.C. §§ 1071-1087-4 (provisions of FFELP). TGSL also offers “nationwide educational debt recovery solutions to colleges, universities, and state guarantors” through its wholly owned for-profit subsidiary, Education Assistance Servs., Inc. (EAS). See Education Assistance Services, Inc., http://www.easerv.com (last visited May 23, 2013).

[680]*680TGSL’s enabling statute affirmatively makes the corporation subject to the OMA. See Tex. Educ.Code § 57.11(c). Likewise, TGSL does not dispute that it is subject to the PIA, a construction that is also implicit in a provision of TGSL’s enabling statute specifically declaring that “[sjtudent loan borrower information [it] collects], assemble[s], or maintains] is confidential and is not subject to disclosure under Chapter 552, Government Code.” See Tex. Educ. Code § 57.11(d); see also Tex. Att’y Gen. Op. No. MW-295 (1981) (concluding that TGSL was subject to prior version of the PIA).

In September 2011, York, an attorney, submitted to TGSL a “Public Information Act Request” seeking twelve specific records or categories of records relating to the corporation’s activities, finances, governance, personnel, and affiliated entities, including EAS. In response, TGSL sought a decision from the Attorney General that it could withhold certain records, or portions thereof, that would be responsive to five of York’s twelve requests. See PIA § 552.301 (request for attorney general decision regarding applicability of PIA exceptions from mandatory disclosure). The responsive records that TGSL sought to withhold in whole or in part and that remain material to the litigation have been categorized by the parties as follows:

• An application TGSL submitted to the DOE in response to DOE’s solicitation of proposals to enter into “Voluntary Flexible Agreements” with the Secretary of DOE. A Voluntary Flexible Agreement (VFA) allows the DOE to relax certain statutory requirements to encourage development of programs and techniques aimed at helping borrowers avoid student-loan default.
• A TGSL “Strategic Plan” that was identified in the corporation’s 2010 annual report.
• TGSL “President’s Reports.”
• Certain documents pertaining to EAS, TGSL’s wholly owned, for-profit subsidiary. Specifically, York requested “[r]ecords indicating states in which [EAS] operated from January 1, 2009, to present” and “[r]ecords indicating the nature of activities of [EAS] in all states in which it operated from January 1, 2009, to present.”
• Certain portions of the “minutes” from the meetings of the TGSL board of directors from January 1, 2009, through the present, including various documents and exhibits that TGSL had attached to the written record of the meetings.1

As TGSL has acknowledged on appeal, all but one of these categories overlap: the Strategic Plan, President’s Reports, and EAS-related documents that currently remain at issue are all contained in, or consist of, minutes from TGSL’s board meetings and the attachments thereto.2 Only TGSL’s VFA application represents a cate[681]*681gory of records entirely separate from the minutes and attachments. In this regard, it becomes relevant that (1) TGSL’s board meetings are open meetings, see Tex. Educ.Code § 57.11; OMA § 551.002; and (2) the OMA provides that “[t]he minutes ... of an open meeting are public records and shall be available for public inspection and copying on request to the governmental body’s chief administrative officer or the officer’s designee.” OMA § 551.022.

In its briefing to the Attorney General, see PIA § 552.301, TGSL urged that each of the records it sought to withhold was shielded from mandatory disclosure by PIA exceptions that principally included section 552.104, which excepts “information that, if released, would give advantage to a competitor or bidder,” see id. § 552.104, and section 552.110, subsection (b), which excepts “[c]ommercial or financial information for which it is demonstrated based on specific factual evidence that disclosure would cause substantial competitive harm to the person from whom the information was obtained,” see id. § 552.110(b).3

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408 S.W.3d 677, 2013 WL 4056182, 2013 Tex. App. LEXIS 9851, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/york-v-texas-guaranteed-student-loan-corp-texapp-2013.