CHICAGO — The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled personal injury lawyers on the prowl for new clients don't have a legal right to force police departments to turn over traffic crash reports containing full contact information for everyone involved in traffic accidents.
The court ruled police departments and other local government bodies do not have the authority under the law to waive individuals' rights to keep their personal information private.
Anthony Mancini, of Mancini Law Group, through his lawyers with the Chicago firm of Loevy & Loevy, sued the Schaumburg Police Department in October 2017 in Cook County Circuit Court, accusing it of violating the Freedom of Information Act by improperly covering up - or, redacting - certain information when granting his request to produce two weeks’ worth of police crash reports.
Anthony Mancini
| mancinilaw.com
In May 2019, former Cook County Judge Franklin Valderrama ruled the Schaumburg department was allowed to black out personal information when giving reports to Mancini, even though it gave unredacted information to LexisNexis, a third-party vendor working for the state. In October 2020, a 2-1 Illinois First District Appellate Court panel affirmed Valderrama’s ruling.
Justice Rita Garman wrote the Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion issued Dec. 16; Justice Robert Carter wrote a special concurrence.
Mancini argued Schaumburg Police had waived their right to redact information from the reports, when they provided restriction-free disclosure to LexisNexis. Mancini further argued the police could have submitted reports directly to the Illinois Secretary of State and Illinois Department of Transportation without using the approved vendor, thus preserving the right to redact.
“Mancini Law Group’s argument targets more than just names and home addresses,” Garman wrote. “If Mancini Law Group prevails, it would additionally have access to individuals’ home or personal phone numbers, personal license plates, driver’s license numbers, dates of birth and insurance policy account numbers.”
In the First District Appellate Court opinion, Justice Daniel Pierce wrote Mancini asked the department to redact driver’s license and license plate numbers, as well as birthdays. The request for full, unredacted reports came during cross motions for summary judgment, relying on a 1997 Illinois Supreme Court opinion in Lieber v. Board of Trustees of Southern Illinois University.
In that case, Garman wrote, SIU refused to give an off-campus landlord information about incoming freshman students, in part arguing FOIA doesn’t mandate release of information to be used for commercial purposes. The Supreme Court ultimately sided with Lieber, noting SIU routinely gave similar information to religious groups and the local newspaper and couldn’t selectively refuse requests.
The Supreme Court rejected the department’s argument that its Lieber precendent had been undone by a 2010 amendment to the state's FOIA law, which further defined “private information." But the high court justices said “there is no dispute as to whether the information at issue here is protected” under the relevant FOIA language. Instead, it turned to a 2011 U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Sherman v. U.S. Department of the Army, in which the Army was allowed to hide Social Security numbers when producing information from a Vietnam-era database, even though it had already given complete documents to the contractor who computerized the records. The Fifth Circuit court determined the Army was releasing enough information to reveal its internal conduct, while only protecting that which didn’t serve the FOIA’s core purpose.
“An Illinois public body does not have the ability to waive an individual’s interest in his or her personal or private information that is contained in a document subject to a FOIA request,” Garman wrote. “It is irrelevant whether the department could have chosen to fulfill its mandatory reporting obligations under the Vehicle Code in a different way.”
With Lieber, the Supreme Court continued, SIU essentially competed with a private business for housing clients, rendering its redactions unfair. And although LexisNexis can sell its reports, the panel said that doesn’t mean the individuals involved lose their right to privacy in every subsequent request.
In his concurrence, Carter said the majority was wrong about the 2010 FOIA amendment, which he said plainly “allows a public body to elect to redact information in its purview” and that the information Mancini sought clearly falls within the “unwarranted invasion of privacy” clause found in the amendment.
Carter also rejected the majority’s reliance on Sherman, noting that while he agreed with its discussion, neither party cited that case and the majority focused on an unraised issue.
“The parties here neither cited Sherman nor advanced the proposition that resolution of this appeal turns on who possesses the relevant privacy interests,” Carter wrote. “I do concur, however, with the majority opinion on a number of other points.”
Attorneys Lance Malina and Mallory Milluzzi, of Klein Thorpe and Jenkins, of Chicago, represented Schaumburg Police in the matter.