STATE OF FLORIDA EX REL. CECIL M. TINDEL, APPELLANT,
v.
BERT L. SHARP, ETC., ET AL., APPELLEES

Fla. 1st DCA | 1974-09-24
No. T-467
RAWLS, C. J., and McCORD and JOHNSON, JJ., concur.
300 So. 2d 750 Florida District Court of Appeal, First District (1974) Negative Treatment
Cited by 8 cases

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Holding

The court held that a consultant's private files, compiled during a search for a school superintendent, are not public records subject to disclosure under Florida's Public Records Act.


Headnotes

[1] Records prepared by an independent contractor as work product, not made or received in connection with the transaction of official business by an agency, are not public r…

[2] An independent contractor hired by a government agency to perform consulting services is not an 'agency' as defined by Florida Statutes § 119.011.

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Facts & Procedural History

A news reporter sought access to the files of a consultant hired by a school board to find a superintendent. The consultant refused access, and the re…

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Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM.

In this case the trial court, Judge Roger J. Waybright of the Circuit Court of Du-val County, entered its final judgment denying appellant’s petition for a peremptory writ of mandamus, and thereby nullifying the alternative writ of mandamus.

Briefly, the facts involve the services of Dr. Bert L. Sharp, Dean of the College of Education of the University of Florida, who, because of his expertise of the subject and by contractual relations with the Duval County School Board, was engaged in helping the School Board find a suitable County School Superintendent to replace the incumbent superintendent who was retiring. Dr. Sharp had accumulated over a number of years quite a file on various members of the profession in connection with other counties’ requests for similar recommendations.

Appellant, who was posing under an assumed name, either Davis or Tindel, but who was in fact a news reporter for a television station, attempted to examine all the files of Dr. Sharp in his office in Gaines-ville, Florida. Dr. Sharp refused. Two representatives of the Florida Attorney General’s office also tried to get access to these files, and we are not clear as to the basis upon which they sought them, but Dr. Sharp and the Board declined to accommodate them.

It appears to us that the work product of Dr. -Sharp was his private property and was not a public record and subject to review by the public as such. The work done by Dr. Sharp in acquainting himself with the information from which he could make able and meaningful reccommenda-tions of any person was no more than an exploratory examination by a physician or an investigation by an attorney-at-law in preparation for a case. Dr. Sharp was not a public officer whose acts and findings came within the purview of public records and thereby subject to the statute governing public records. He was not an agency as that term is defined by § 119.011, Florida Statutes, and thus his records were not public records subject to disclosure under § 119.01, Florida Statutes. The recommendations and papers he delivered to the Duval County School Board under his contract became public record upon the Board’s receipt of them. Section 119.01, Florida Statutes, provides as follows:

“Public records open to examination by citizens. — All state, county and municipal records shall at all times be open for a personal inspection of any citizen of Florida, and those in charge of such records shall not refuse this privilege to any citizen.”

Section 119.011, Florida Statutes, states as follows:

“Definitions. — For the purpose of this act:
(1) ‘Public records’ shall mean all documents, papers, letters, maps, books, tapes, photographs, films, sound recordings or other material, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received pursuant to law or ordinance or in connection with the transaction of official business by any agency.

“(2) ‘Agency’ shall mean any state, county or municipal officer, department, division, board, bureau, commission or other separate unit of government created or established by law.” (Emphasis supplied)

It is clear that Dr. Sharp was not an agency under the definition of that term. He was not a state, county or municipal office, department, division, board, bureau, commission or other separate unit of government created or established by law. As stated by the able trial judge in his order, Dr. Sharp was an independent contractor, a consultant employed by the school board to seek out prospects he could recommend to them for their consideration for the vacant position of superintendent of schools of Duval County. Had the legislature intended to bring such a person into the ambit of the public records disclosure law, it could have very easily done so by expanding its agency definition to include same, but we should not by judicial fiat make such an expansion of the legislature’s definition. The reports furnished to the school board by Dr. ^harp were the only papers of Dr. Sharp that came into possession of the agency (the school board) and were used by it in its selection of a county school superintendent. As previously stated, they are public records to which any citizen has right of access under the statute, but the personal papers retained by Dr. Sharp do not fall within the statute’s terms.

Therefore, the trial court was correct in denying the petition for peremptory mandamus and in terminating this action.

Affirmed.

RAWLS, C. J., and McCORD and JOHNSON, JJ., concur.


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Citator

Cited By

  • …the consultant searching for and identifying qualified potential candidates, and JEA publicly selecting from among the candidates. The arrangement thus sought to preserve a distinction in roles this court recognized in State ex rel. Tindel v. Sharp, 300 So. 2d 750 (Fla. 1st DCA 1974), cert. denied, 310 So. 2d 745 (Fla.1975), holding that the written work product of an educational consultant, employed by a school board to assist in the search for a new superintendent, was the consultant’s “private property” an…
  • Schwartzman v. Merritt Island Volunteer Fire Dep't, 352 So. 2d 1230 (Fla. 4th DCA 1977)
    …ns to permit the inspection and copying2 of all “public records” of the Merritt Island Volunteer Fire Department. ALDERMAN, C. J., and DOWNEY, J., concur. . The quoted statute was amended in 1975 after the holding in State ex rel. Tindel v. Sharp, 300 So. 2d 750 (Fla. 1st DCA 1974). . The officials of the volunteer department had offered to permit inspection but not copying. Section 119.07(1) Florida Statutes specifically requires that the custodian of the records “shall furnish copies.”…
  • …Certiorari denied. 300 So. 2d 750. ADKINS, C. J., and ROBERTS, McCAIN, OVERTON and ENGLAND, JJ., concur.…

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