MANHATTAN (CN) — The Connecticut Legislature was responding to a “pressing social ill” and a crisis of confidence in the wake of George Floyd’s murder when it disregarded a collective bargaining agreement and made police disciplinary records subject to the state’s open records laws, the Second Circuit ruled Thursday.
The “law served a legitimate public purpose and that the legislature, in passing it, acted not self-servingly but in the public interest,” U.S. Circuit Judge Raymond Lohier Jr. wrote for a three-judge panel that heard the police union’s appeal in New York.
Passed amid national uproar following the murder of George Floyd, who was Black and unarmed, by a white police officer who kneeled on his neck in May 2020, the police reform bill included provisions that nullified a portion of the Connecticut State Police Union’s collective bargaining agreement, which had previously given officers a chance to object to the release of their personnel file.
The bargaining agreement had also blocked disclosure of internal affairs investigations that exonerated officers, or that concluded the allegations against the individual was not sustained or unfounded.
Lawmakers had ratified the collective bargaining agreement with the provisions about disciplinary records only about a year before Floyd’s death.
Fighting the reversal of those protections, the Connecticut State Police Union filed suit in August 2020, alleging violations of the Contracts Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Pointing to pending requests seeking information that the collective bargaining agreement had blocked from disclosure, the union’s complaint said officers faced the possibility of irreparable harm.
But the U.S. District Court for Connecticut denied the union’s request for an injunction, reasoning that the union had slim odds of prevailing on the merits.
During Second Circuit oral arguments in October, the police union tried to bolster its argument that the contract clause blocked Connecticut’s attempt at legislation by pointing to court precedent relating to commercial leases during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The appeals court proved unpersuaded, however, by the union’s argument that the Legislature kowtowed to special interests in allowing police disciplinary records to fall under Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Act. Rather, the Legislature adopted “a broad mandate for open government in the public interest” when it originally created the open records law that originally included police disciplinary records, the ruling states.
“It was, to the contrary, the collective bargaining agreement that introduced a special contractual departure from the original policy to satisfy a powerful group of public employees,” Lohier wrote. “The restoration of the prior FOIA regime exemplifies the point that the legislature cannot permanently bargain away its responsibility to govern in the public interest.”
Lohier is an Obama appointee. He was joined on the panel hearing the case by U.S. Circuit Judges Gerald Lynch, another Obama appointee, and Joseph Bianco, an appointee of Trump.
The union had argued the shielding of police disciplinary records was necessary: Officers were facing a rising number of anonymous and false accusations of serious misconduct, allegations that should not see the light of day.
But Lohier noted that the accusations are not necessarily false when internal affairs investigations end with the allegations not sustained, unfounded or exonerated.
“At a more general level, the public may often have a strong interest in learning about a complaint even when it does not justify disciplinary action,” Lohier wrote.
Lohier’s opinion concludes with a note about the Second Circuit’s deference to the state’s arguments that the portion of the act was reasonable.
“Our deference is not blind, however; it can be overcome by compelling evidence from plaintiffs that the State’s actions were either unreasonable or unnecessary,” Lohier wrote.
Elizabeth Benson, spokesperson for the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office, declined to comment, saying the office would “defer to the decision itself.”
The union and the firm that represented it did not immediately return requests for comment.
Follow @jcksndnl
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
