Open-records office withdraws from Luzerne Co. case
BY MICHAEL P. BUFFER
Citizens Voice Staff Writer
The Pennsylvania Office of Open Records has withdrawn from a court case appealing its own ruling that Luzerne County must disclose who gets health-care benefits from the county.
The office still stands by its ruling against the county but has "limited resources," said Corina V. Wilson, chief counsel for the office. She said the office only has four other attorneys, who can't travel across the state and defend all office rulings appealed in court.
Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, said "it's problematic" that the open-records office is not able to defend all of its rulings in court. When the office doesn't defend a ruling in court, the person who filed the initial right-to-know request now has the burden to defend the ruling, she said.
"Some people don't have the resources to get an attorney, and it puts us back to where we were under the old law," Melewsky said.
But the new open-records law, which went into effect this year and established the open-records office, is still better than the old law, Melewsky said.
"We have an office of open records there now, and there have been appeals," she said. "But under the old law, the only option was to file a lawsuit."
The open-records office has issued many rulings that weren't appealed to court, and that alone is an improvement, Melewsky said.
The office this year has received more than 750 appeals of rejected requests for information and has issued more than 380 rulings. As of Aug. 13, 23 rulings were appealed to Commonwealth Court, and 32 were appealed to county courts of common pleas.
"Our position is the courts should give deference to the Office of Open Records," Melewsky said.
Commonwealth Court appeals involve requests for information from state agencies, and Commonwealth Court rules prevent the open-records office from withdrawing from those cases, Wilson said.
"We're new, and we're in a start-up phase," Wilson said. "The staff we have is based on the budget we have been given."
Assistant County Solicitor Stephen A. Menn has argued that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act has standards of privacy for health information that prevent the county from disclosing the names of who gets county health coverage.
The Citizens' Voice filed the initial right-to-know request on March 25. The county denied the request for health-coverage information on April 24, and the open-records office ruled against the county on June 10.
The newspaper on March 25 also requested the disclosure of the cost to provide health coverage for two prison board appointees who inappropriately got county health benefits from February 2005 to April 2009. Luzerne County Solicitor Vito DeLuca has asked an outside law enforcement agency to investigate how the former prison board members, Wister Yuhas and Robert Payne, got county health benefits.
Yuhas and Payne have maintained they didn't do anything wrong, and both said someone else filled out information on application paperwork. The county also denied a request to see that paperwork, citing HIPAA.
The county is partially self-insured and pays two insurers - Geisinger Indemnity Insurance Co. and First Priority Health - to administer plans, which provide access to their health networks. The county pays monthly fees of at least $48 per employee enrolled and also pays the cost of health care claims of less than $200,000.
The county spent more than $13 million on health benefits in 2008, records show. The average cost of county health coverage for a family is roughly $13,000 a year, and it's about $6,000 for a single plan.
Yuhas and Payne were unpaid court appointees to the prison board and not eligible for coverage offered to full-time county employees. President Judge Chester B. Muroski replaced Payne and Yuhas with two new board members on March 9 and lost county health-care coverage April 1.
County application forms for health-care coverage include a warning that knowingly trying to defraud any insurance company is a crime. County officials have said the county prison board never voted to give health-care coverage to Yuhas and Payne, who claimed he never even used his county health-care coverage because he is covered by his wife's plan.
The Pennsylvania Office of Open Records - 2009 Caseload
Citizens Voice Staff Writer
The Pennsylvania Office of Open Records has withdrawn from a court case appealing its own ruling that Luzerne County must disclose who gets health-care benefits from the county.
The office still stands by its ruling against the county but has "limited resources," said Corina V. Wilson, chief counsel for the office. She said the office only has four other attorneys, who can't travel across the state and defend all office rulings appealed in court.
Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, said "it's problematic" that the open-records office is not able to defend all of its rulings in court. When the office doesn't defend a ruling in court, the person who filed the initial right-to-know request now has the burden to defend the ruling, she said.
"Some people don't have the resources to get an attorney, and it puts us back to where we were under the old law," Melewsky said.
But the new open-records law, which went into effect this year and established the open-records office, is still better than the old law, Melewsky said.
"We have an office of open records there now, and there have been appeals," she said. "But under the old law, the only option was to file a lawsuit."
The open-records office has issued many rulings that weren't appealed to court, and that alone is an improvement, Melewsky said.
The office this year has received more than 750 appeals of rejected requests for information and has issued more than 380 rulings. As of Aug. 13, 23 rulings were appealed to Commonwealth Court, and 32 were appealed to county courts of common pleas.
"Our position is the courts should give deference to the Office of Open Records," Melewsky said.
Commonwealth Court appeals involve requests for information from state agencies, and Commonwealth Court rules prevent the open-records office from withdrawing from those cases, Wilson said.
"We're new, and we're in a start-up phase," Wilson said. "The staff we have is based on the budget we have been given."
Luzerne County's appeal
On July 8, Luzerne County filed a court appeal of the office ruling to disclose who gets health benefits from the county. In court filings from Aug. 4, Wilson withdrew from the case but asked the court to respect and uphold its ruling.Assistant County Solicitor Stephen A. Menn has argued that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act has standards of privacy for health information that prevent the county from disclosing the names of who gets county health coverage.
The Citizens' Voice filed the initial right-to-know request on March 25. The county denied the request for health-coverage information on April 24, and the open-records office ruled against the county on June 10.
The newspaper on March 25 also requested the disclosure of the cost to provide health coverage for two prison board appointees who inappropriately got county health benefits from February 2005 to April 2009. Luzerne County Solicitor Vito DeLuca has asked an outside law enforcement agency to investigate how the former prison board members, Wister Yuhas and Robert Payne, got county health benefits.
Yuhas and Payne have maintained they didn't do anything wrong, and both said someone else filled out information on application paperwork. The county also denied a request to see that paperwork, citing HIPAA.
The county is partially self-insured and pays two insurers - Geisinger Indemnity Insurance Co. and First Priority Health - to administer plans, which provide access to their health networks. The county pays monthly fees of at least $48 per employee enrolled and also pays the cost of health care claims of less than $200,000.
The county spent more than $13 million on health benefits in 2008, records show. The average cost of county health coverage for a family is roughly $13,000 a year, and it's about $6,000 for a single plan.
Yuhas and Payne were unpaid court appointees to the prison board and not eligible for coverage offered to full-time county employees. President Judge Chester B. Muroski replaced Payne and Yuhas with two new board members on March 9 and lost county health-care coverage April 1.
County application forms for health-care coverage include a warning that knowingly trying to defraud any insurance company is a crime. County officials have said the county prison board never voted to give health-care coverage to Yuhas and Payne, who claimed he never even used his county health-care coverage because he is covered by his wife's plan.
Quicks Facts
The Pennsylvania Office of Open Records - 2009 Caseload
- Received more than 750 appeals of rejected requests for information.
- Issued more than 380 rulings.
- At least 55 rulings have been appealed to Commonwealth Court or county courts of common pleas.
