SAPP ROOFING COMPANY, INC., Appellant, v. SHEET METAL WORKERS’ INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION, LOCAL UNION NO. 12, and North Hills School District and W. David Hall, as records custodian for North Hills School District, Appellees.
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
Argued Sept. 18, 1996. Decided June 24, 1998.
713 A.2d 627
Ernest B. Orsatti, Pittsburgh, for Sheet Metal Workers International Association.
Michael J. Witherel, Pittsburgh, for North Hills School District & W. David Hall.
OPINION ANNOUNCING THE JUDGMENT OF THE COURT
CASTILLE, Justice.
The issue in this appeal is whether the Right to Know Act,
On July 8, 1993, the union sent a written request to the school district seeking copies of certified payroll records in the custody of the school district for contractual roofing work performed on three school district buildings by Sapp Roofing, a non-union roofing company. The three roofing jobs were public projects for which the school district received state funding. Sapp Roofing submitted the payroll records in question to the school district under the Prevailing Wage Act,
Section 165-6 of the Prevailing Wage Act,
Every contractor and subcontractor shall keep an accurate record showing the name, craft and the actual hourly wage paid to each workman employed by him in connection with public work, and such record shall be preserved for two years from date of payment. The record shall be open at all
reasonable hours for inspection of the public body awarding the contract and to the secretary.
The Prevailing Wage Act,
Before final payment is made by, or on behalf of any public body of any sum or sums due on public work, it shall be the duty of the treasurer of the public body or other officer or person charged with the custody and disbursement of the funds of the public body to require the contractor to file statements, in writing, in form satisfactory to the secretary, certifying to the amounts then due and owing from such contractor and subcontractor, filing such statement to any and all workmen for wages due on account of public work, setting forth therein the names of the persons whose wages are unpaid and the amount due to each respectively....
The records requested by the union in this case contain the names and addresses of Sapp Roofing‘s employees on the three roofing projects, their social security numbers, job positions, rates of pay and hours worked on the jobs. The union sought the records for the stated purpose of ensuring that Sapp Roofing complied with the Prevailing Wage Act, claiming that the records are public records under the Right to Know Act. The Right to Know Act,
Any account, voucher or contract dealing with the receipt or disbursement of funds by an agency or its acquisition, use or disposal of services or of supplies, materials, equipment or other property and any minute, order or decision by an agency fixing the personal or property rights, privileges, immunities, duties or obligations of any person or group of persons: Provided, that the term “public records” shall not mean any report, communication or other paper, the publication of which would disclose the institution, progress or result of an investigation undertaken by an agency in the performance of its official duties, except those reports filed by agencies pertaining to safety and health in industrial plants; it shall not include any record, document, material,
exhibit, pleading, report, memorandum or other paper, access to or the publication of which is prohibited, restricted or forbidden by statute law or order or decree of court, or which would operate to the prejudice or impairment of the person‘s reputation or personal security, or which would result in the loss by the Commonwealth or any of its political subdivisions or commissions or State or municipal authorities of Federal funds, excepting therefrom however any record of any conviction for any criminal act.
In Community College of Philadelphia v. Brown, 544 Pa. 31, 33, 674 A.2d 670, 671 (1996), this Court stated:
Generally, the Right to Know Act opens public records to examination and inspection by any citizen, excepting papers the publication of which would disclose the institution, progress or result of an official investigation. The intent of the act was to clarify the right of examination and inspection of public records by all citizens. Wiley v. Woods, 393 Pa. 341, 350, 141 A.2d 844, [849] (1958).
The Right to Know Act applies to “public records” of “public agencies.”
See also McMullan v. Wohlgemuth, 453 Pa. 147, 158, 308 A.2d 888, 894 (1973) (“The ‘Right-To-Know Act’ gives ‘any member of the Commonwealth’ a statutory right of access to every ‘public record’ of a state agency.“).
Pursuant to the Right to Know Act, to be available for inspection, the records must be both public records and records of a state agency. The union contends and the trial court and Commonwealth Court properly held that the requested records fit within the statutory definition of a public record because they are an account dealing with the disbursement of funds by an agency,1 and further that they are the school district‘s records under the Prevailing Wage Act. We agree that the payroll records are public records because they are records evidencing a disbursement by the school district.
The purpose of the Right to Know Act is to allow any individual or entity, be it a person or a union, access to public records to discover information about the workings of our government. However, the right of access to public records is tempered by the definition of a public record contained in the Act:
[I]t shall not include any record, document, material, exhibit, pleading, report, memorandum or other paper, access to or the publication of which is prohibited, restricted or forbidden by statute, law or order or decree of court, or which would operate to the prejudice or impairment of the person‘s reputation or personal security ... (emphasis added).
We must now decide whether the records requested by the union here would potentially impair the personal security of Sapp Roofing‘s employees and whether that potential impair-
We believe that the union overestimates the public interest to be served by disclosure of these records. The disclosure of personal information (names, addresses, social security numbers, and phone numbers) reveals little, if anything, about the government‘s (in this case the school district‘s) compliance with the Prevailing Wage Act. Indeed, the union here does not explain how the disclosure of this personal information for the purpose of monitoring Prevailing Wage Act compliance overcomes the individual employees’ strong privacy interests. Even if we agree with the union that the public has an interest in enforcing the prevailing wage laws through “monitoring,” the requested information would not enhance enforcement of the Prevailing Wage Act by the government.
Therefore, after balancing this weak public interest in disclosure of the information and the unproven ability of the release of the requested information to assist in the enforcement of the prevailing wage laws against the individual‘s right to privacy and personal security, the Court concludes that the personal information is not releasable. Consequently, the only information that the union can access from the school district records is the wage information of Sapp Roofing‘s employees. Our decision here is in accord with recent interpretations of similar federal legislation reviewed by our federal courts. See Sheet Metal Workers Int‘l Ass‘n, Local Union No. 19 v. United States Dep‘t of Veterans Affairs, 135 F.3d 891 (3d Cir.1998) (Department of Veteran Affairs could redact names, social security numbers and addresses of employees whose payroll records were sought in an effort to monitor compliance with federal prevailing wage laws); Hopkins v. United States Dep‘t of Housing and Urban Dev., 929 F.2d 81, 87 (2d Cir.1991) (“individual private employees have a significant interest in avoiding disclosure of their names and addresses, particularly where, as here, the names and addresses would be coupled with personal financial information.“); Painting Industry of Hawaii Market Recovery Fund v. United States Dep‘t of Air Force, 26 F.3d 1479 (1994) (the release of personal employee information implicates significant privacy interests).
Accordingly, the decision of the Commonwealth Court is affirmed.
NEWMAN, J., did not participate in the consideration or decision of this case.
ZAPPALA, J., files a concurring opinion.
NIGRO, J., concurs in the result.
CAPPY, J., files a dissenting opinion.
ZAPPALA, Justice, concurring.
I agree with the majority that the payroll records that were in the possession of the school district were “public records” for purposes of the “right to know” statute,
Under the Act, contractors and subcontractors are required “to keep an accurate record showing the name, craft and the actual hourly wage paid to each workman employed by him in connection with public work.... The record shall be open at all reasonable hours to the inspection of the public body
The language of the Act and the regulations, it would seem, contemplate the contractor retaining its payroll records and making them available to specified parties. However the practice of having the contractor submit its payroll records to the public body may have developed in this or any other case, it does not appear to be required by the Prevailing Wage Act itself.
CAPPY, Justice, dissenting.
Because I do not agree that the records at issue in this matter are “public records” as defined in The Right to Know Act,
The Right to Know Act, in pertinent part, defines “public record” as: “[a]ny account, voucher or contract dealing with the receipt or disbursement of funds by an agency ...”
There is nothing in this section which would indicate that the required certifications equate to an “account, voucher or contract” evidencing a disbursement of funds by the public agency or that the filing of such certifications propels a disbursement by the public agency for such amounts so as to render the payroll records “public” and thus, obtainable under the Right to Know Act. Indeed, it more clearly addresses monies owed by the contractor and/or subcontractor to their workers and not amounts owed by the public agency. These payroll records constitute neither a record of any business dealings or transactions between Appellant and the School District; accordingly, they are neither a “voucher” nor an “account.” And, they certainly do not evidence any “contract” between the School District and Appellant.
In short, I do not believe that the payroll records in question evidence any disbursements or agreements to disburse monies by the School District and that, therefore, it was error for the lower courts to permit the Union access to those records under the guise of The Right to Know Act.