City of Portland v. Kessler

“Exemptions from disclosure are to be narrowly construed. A narrow construction of a public records exemption is one that favors disclosure… The ‘narrow construction’ rule means that, if there is a plausible construction of a statute favoring disclosure of public records, that is the construction that prevails.” Colby v. Gunson, 224 Or App 666, 676 (2008).

Plaintiff appeals from a general judgment declaring public employee personal cell phone numbers were not exempt from disclosure under ORS 192.355(3) when the records containing the information were not “personnel records.” Defendant submitted a public records request for city-issued cell phones, including metadata of all numbers that exchanged text messages with city-issued cell phones. Plaintiff claimed an employee would need to view and redact the information. Defendant petitioned the Multnomah County District Attorney who determined ORS 192.355(3) applied only to personal information of public employees contained in personnel records. Plaintiff then filed action in the circuit court. The Court engaged in a statutory interpretation analysis of the ORS to determine whether the phrase “contained in personnel records” is a part of the rest of the limiting phrase and therefore applies to the entire list of categories of information. “Exemptions from disclosure are to be narrowly construed. A narrow construction of a public records exemption is one that favors disclosure… The ‘narrow construction’ rule means that, if there is a plausible construction of a statute favoring disclosure of public records, that is the construction that prevails.” Colby v. Gunson, 224 Or App 666, 676 (2008). The Court reasoned that reading the statute to mean “maintained” applied to the word “records” rather than individual categories was consistent with other statutes in ORS Chapter 192 and the plain text. The Court also reasoned the interpretation was consistent with the legislative history because the purpose of the exemption was to protect certain public employees. The Court held the requested records were not subject to the ORS 192.355(3) exemption and must be disclosed, and the circuit court did not err in granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment. Affirmed.