Sapp Roofing Company, Inc. v. Sheet Metal Workers' International Association

In Sapp Roofing Company, Inc. v. Sheet Metal Workers' International Association, 552 Pa. 105, 713 A.2d 627 (1998) (plurality), our Supreme Court referred to a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, arising under the Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which recognized the significant interest private employees have in avoiding the disclosure of their names and addresses when associated with financial information. In Sapp Roofing, a private contractor sought to enjoin a labor union from the right to access a contractor's payroll records in the possession of a school district. The trial court denied the injunction, and, in an unreported decision, a three-judge panel of this Court affirmed. On appeal, a divided Supreme Court took up the question of whether the contractor's payroll records were open for inspection under the old Right-to-Know Law ("Old Law"). The payroll records at issue in Sapp Roofing included information similar to the certified payroll records at issue here--i.e., employee names and addresses, social security numbers, job positions, rates of pay, etc. In Sapp Roofing, three justices concluded under the 1957 Law that payroll records of a contractor were "public" (and not, by the way, "financial records" as the Majority now holds) because they evidenced a disbursement of funds. Sapp Roofing is inapplicable to the cases before us, not only because it is a plurality opinion, but because it does not analyze the plain meaning of the terms "account, voucher and contract" under the new RTKL. Sapp Roofing interpreted the definition of "public record" as defined by the 1957 Law, the four section predecessor to the new fifty-two section RTKL. The specific issues before the Sapp Roofing Court were whether the payroll records constituted "public records," whether the release of payroll records would "impair the personal security of Sapp Roofing's employees," and whether that "potential impairment outweighs the public interest in the dissemination of the records." Sapp Roofing, 713 A.2d at 629.