Pierce County, WA v. Guillen, Ignacio, et al.

Questions presented: (1) Is 23 U.S.C. @ 409, a federal statute which protects certain documents "compiled or collected" in connection with certain federal highway safety programs from being discovered or admitted in federal or state trials, a valid exercise of Congress's power under the supremacy, spending, commerce, or necessary and proper clauses of the Constitution? (2) Do private plaintiffs have standing to assert "states' rights" under the 10th Amendment when their state's legislative and executive branches expressly approve and accept benefits and terms of the federal statute in question?

BY AMELIA GRUBER, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Congress established the "Hazard Elimination Program" in 1973 in hopes of making a dent in the high number of fatal car accidents reported in the United States each year. Under the program, towns and cities could apply for federal grants to help fix dangerous local road conditions.

To qualify for the federal money, municipalities needed to send in accident reports and data showing that the roadways in question jeopardized travelers' safety. They also needed to rank all public roads that may constitute a danger to motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians in order of the danger posed, so that the government could prioritize where to spend its money.

Congress soon discovered that the program had an unintended side effect. Private lawyers representing people who had been involved in accidents on any of the "hazardous" roadways could obtain the accident reports and other information collected by towns applying for the federal aid and turn it against them, claiming they were negligent in failing to fix the danger spots earlier.

In 1987, Congress decided to make some changes in the program. It passed 23 U.S.C. Section 409, to prevent the Hazard Elimination Program from providing a "virtually no-work tool for direct use in private litigation" and to "facilitate candor in administrative evaluations of highway safety hazards."

While a state public disclosure act in Washington gives people access to many local documents, Section 409 classifies materials collected and compiled to identify danger sections of roads, that could qualify for Hazard Elimination money, as "privileged" information unavailable to the public.

For the most part, state courts originally interpreted Section 409 as applying only to traffic reports and surveys that towns created specifically for Hazard Elimination applications. But Congress desired a broader reading of the statute, so it amended Section 409 in 1995 to make any accident reports or data that towns sent to the federal government off limits to the public, even if the towns did not originally collect the materials with the intent of using them to apply for Hazard Elimination funds.

Ignacio Guillen initiated the long process of challenging Congress' amendments to Section 409 after his wife, Clementina, died in July 1996 in a car accident after she ran a stop sign at an intersection that officials in Pierce County, Wash., had identified as dangerous more than a year earlier.

In May 1995, the county had asked the federal government for Hazard Elimination funds to install a light at the intersection. The government denied Pierce County's first application but granted a second one three weeks after Clementina Guillen-Alejandre's fatal accident.

Guillen filed a civil suit against the county on behalf of his late wife, claiming officials were negligent for not setting up safe traffic lights at an intersection it knew was dangerous. In preparing the case, Guillen's lawyer asked the county's risk management department for documents relating to the intersection's accident history. The department repeatedly denied his requests, citing Section 409.

The denials continued even after Guillen's lawyer clarified his request, saying he did not want reports specifically written for developing any safety construction improvement project at the intersection. "We are simply seeking information as to when accidents have occurred at the intersection for the last 10 years," he wrote in a letter to the county. "Obviously, the documents we are requesting would not contain any opinions by Pierce County representatives as to the safety of the intersection. Instead, we are seeking documents pertaining to facts."

Guillen challenged the county's refusal in Pierce County Superior Court. The court ordered the county to turn over nearly all of the documents Guillen had requested, including collision diagrams and police reports describing former accidents at the same intersection where his wife died.

The county appealed the ruling to the Washington State Court of Appeals. That court affirmed, writing that traffic data Guillen had asked for was not covered by Section 409 privilege because he "carefully requested reports in the hands of the sheriff or other law enforcement agencies, not reports or data collected or compiled by the Public Works Department [for its Hazard Elimination application]."

The county also faced another case similar to Guillen's. In August 1996, two sisters, one a teenager, sustained brain injuries as a result of a car accident at another intersection deemed hazardous by the county. Denel and Shana Whitmer and their family sued the county for negligence. Like Guillen, they were denied access to documents describing the intersection's accident history.

Based on the decisions in favor of Guillen, a trial court ruled that Pierce County had to hand over the documents the Whitmers had asked for.

The county eventually appealed both cases to the Washington Supreme Court, which consolidated them. A footnote in the appellate court's ruling in favor of Guillen caught the state high court's attention. The appeals judges said that, though Guillen had not raised the question in his case, they wondered if Section 409, as amended, is even constitutional. The appellate court wrote: "It is at least arguable that Congress lacks the authority to tell this state, or any state, that it 'shall not' disclose or admit, in state court litigation, 'reports . . . or data compiled or collected' by a state agency (e.g. Pierce County's Public Works Department)."

The case was unusual because typically states, not individual citizens, question whether the federal government has violated their 10th Amendment rights.

But the Washington Supreme Court ruled that Guillen and the Whitmers were in a position to question the constitutionality of the 1995 amendments to Section 409. "Private respondents are not deprived of standing to challenge the constitutionality of a law on federalism grounds simply because state officials oppose the challenge," the court wrote.

The state high court ruled that even under the amended Section 409, Guillen and the Whitmers were entitled to see accident reports and use them, at least in the pre-trial discovery process. "While [the statute] exempts accident reports prepared by persons involved in accidents from public disclosure or admission as evidence in certain trials, we hold that they remain discoverable," the court wrote.

More importantly, the court ruled that "Congress's 1995 amendment to Section 409 violates the United States Constitution's federalist design as defined by its framers and by the United States Supreme Court."

The court cited the importance of making public records, like accident reports, available unless the records are privileged because they were originally created for federal purposes.

"Without [public disclosure], government of the people, by the people, for the people, risks becoming government of the people, by the bureaucrats, for the special interests," the court wrote. "In the famous words of James Madison, 'A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both.'"

The court added that over the years, Congress has tried to influence state behavior by attaching strings to federal funds. But it noted that these strings are only appropriate if they are in the legitimate public interest. Barring accident reports and traffic data from discovery in state court cases just because the same reports were used as part of the federal traffic safety program is not in the public interest, the court wrote.

While Washington has tried to remain in compliance with the 1995 amendment to Section 409, "a few state courts have understandably remained reluctant to construe Section 409 in a manner that effectively creates a legal black hole into which state and local governments can drop virtually all accident materials and facts, simply by showing that such materials and raw data are also collected and used to rank candidates for federal safety improvement projects statewide," the Washington Supreme Court wrote.

Pierce County requested that the U.S. Supreme Court review the Washington Supreme Court's ruling because it believes the 1995 amendments to Section 409 are constitutional. It also contends that the state court's ruling puts badly needed federal funding to help improve road safety in jeopardy.

On April 29, 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case, and allowed The International Municipal Lawyers Association and The Association of American Railroads to file briefs in the case as "friends of the Court."

On Jan. 14, 2003, the Court unanimously reversed, holding that Congress had not exceeded its powers under the commerce clause. Writing for the Court, Justice Clarence Thomas concluded that Congress sought to assist state and local governments in reducing hazardous conditions, but its effort was impeded by states wary of providing a centralized location from which would-be plaintiffs could obtain much of the evidence necessary to sue.

Because Congress was attempting to facilitate more diligent collection efforts, more candid discussions of hazardous locations, better informed decisionmaking, and greater safety on the nation's roads, Thomas wrote, both the original sect.409 and the 1995 amendment can be viewed as legislation aimed at improving safety in the channels of commerce andincreasing protections for the instrumentalities of interstatecommerce.