In this case, plaintiff alleged police brutality on a routine traffic stop. During the proceedings he requested internal investigation documents from the police. The police declined on the grounds the requested documents were part of a personnel file and exempt from FOIA (Freedom of Information Act). At trial, the Court of Appeals concluded that only "personal information" in police personnel files are completely exempt from disclosure, merely placing documents within personnel files does not automatically confer exemption.

UPDATE: The Illinois Supreme Court held that an employment contract is not the kind of record the General Assembly intended to keep from public view and does not fall within the exemption for personnel files in section 7(1)(b) of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The Illinois Supreme Court agreed that remand for the circuit court to privately inspect the contract is appropriate, but disagreed as to the scope of the inspection. It directed the circuit court to determine whether it contains personal information (such as a social security number or bank account information) which, if disclosed, would constitute an unwarranted invasion of the superintendent’s personal privacy. That information must be deleted. See 5 ILCS 140/8.

But, the Court was clear that the circuit court's inspection is not to become a battle of details where the circuit court determines whether each individual paragraph or subsection bears on the superintendent’s public duties.

Therefore, an employment contract, as a whole, bears on the employee’s public duties and, moreover, constitutes a “contract dealing with the expenditure of public or other funds of public bodies”; (5 ILCS 140/2(c)(vii)) and, with the exception noted above for personal information, the superintendent’s employment contract must be disclosed in its entirety.

HISTORY OF THIS CASE:

In Stern v. Wheaton-Warrenville Community Unit School District 200, No. 107139. (November 26, 2008), the Illinois Supreme Court granted a petition for leave to appeal to determine whether the trial court properly denied plaintiff's FOIA request for a copy of the superintendent's contract. The trial court found that the superintendent's employment contract was per se exempt under FOIA because it was part of his personnel file.

Before the petition for leave to appeal was filed, the Appellate Court reversed the trial court and found that public employees' employment contracts were subject to disclosure under FOIA with respect to information bearing on public duties. The Appellate Court also found that there were issues of material fact regarding whether any portion of the subject contract was exempt under FOIA.

The Appellate Court issued its opinion on June 9, 2008. Then, it modified and superseded its opinion when it denied a rehearing on July 11, 2008. After that, the Appellate Court withdrew its opinion on July 25, 2008 and modified it on August 12, 2008. The petition for leave to appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court was granted on November 26, 2008.

IASB's October 2008 Newsbulletin's Recent Developments in School Law column discussed the issues in this case and why they are important for school officials to be aware of, understand and watch.

[Note: The following case has no precedential value in Illinois but is posted because it is a topic of interest to school officials.]

An assistant principal's liberty interest in his good name and reputation, as related to his employment, was not infringed when a tape-recorded sexually-explicit telephone conversation he had with his secretary was disseminated.

The assistant principal's employment was not terminated, and he was allowed to fulfill his one-year contract. He was later offered a position as a first-grade teacher, but then he secured a position as an administrator in a different district.

An unsuccessful school board candidate filed an election contest and prevailed in the circuit court of Will County. Upon the school board member’s motion, the circuit court awarded costs against the county clerk. The clerk appealed. The Appellate Court reversed. It held that no statutory authority exists to award costs to a candidate challenging an election. The section of the Election Code providing that an election contest be tried in a like manner as "other civil cases" incorporates only the provisions contained in the Civil Practice Law, and not the other provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure governing an award of costs.

A circuit court in Madison County, Illinois (5th Appellate District) erred in concluding that public body followed Freedom of Information Act when it refused plaintiff permission to examine original audio tape recording of the public body’s meeting and instead only offered to make plaintiff a copy of the recording for a fee. The public body refused to allow the plaintiff to listen to the original tape for concerns of preservation of the original tape. However, the Appellate Court stated that it cannot ignore the intent of the legislature as evinced by the plain language of the Freedom of Information Act. The Act states that public bodies must make public records available for inspection and copying, unless they can avoid doing so by invoking an exception that is provided in the Act. The fact that a public body lacks the facilities for the public to listen to audiotapes is not a valid basis upon which to deny a request to inspect a tape-recorded public record.