PROVO – A 4th District Court judge gave Utah county officials 48 hours to submit documents revealing the names of two Utah county businesses that health officials had found to violate COVID-19 guidelines on last month.
The ruling was a victory for KSL-TV, which was joined by a coalition of other Utah news organizations in the legal fight to discover the names of those two Utah county companies linked to the outbreaks of new coronaviruses in May.
After listening to the oral arguments at an online court hearing on Monday, District 4 Judge Christine Johnson rejected Utah County’s arguments that disclosing company names would also result in “de facto identification” of employees. of those companies that participated in health department contact tracking investigations and those who may have contracted COVID-19, which would be private and personal health information.
“Just because they are small businesses does not mean there is a de facto identification of the people who contracted COVID-19,” Johnson said. “I just don’t think the identification of a company alone reveals to the public the identification of anyone in that company.”
The judge also sided with media arguments that the public interest exceeds Utah County’s goal of keeping company names protected due to the risk of possible “backlash” against companies, a scenario that the judge described as “hypothetical”.
“As for the public interest, overall, I think the public has a significant and meaningful interest in knowing about the COVID-19 outbreaks, as they happen, who they happen to,” Johnson said. “That certainly helps the public prepare and know how people can protect themselves, understand how other people have been sick, how other outbreaks have occurred, where those outbreaks occurred. I think we are all in a better position to understand how to stay healthy if that information is transparently available. ”
The judge ruled that information that could personally identify an individual is appropriately classified as protected information, but the county may still publish documents with appropriate redactions.
While the county attorney argued that most of the records KSL-TV searched for were made up of contact tracking documents, and types of medical information that could come from a doctor’s office, media attorney Jeff Hunt argued that KSL-TV did not want personal information, but rather any document such as email exchanges between county officials related to those two companies.
“COVID-19 infections in Utah and across the country are on the rise and are prompting officials to consider further restrictions on businesses and the public,” said Hunt. Given this backdrop, in the midst of a pandemic, the public has a keen interest in receiving timely and accurate information about the transmission of this highly infectious and potentially lethal virus.
“And knowing the names of (these) companies … is directly related to that public interest so that the public can make informed decisions about their health and the health of their loved ones.”
The court battle came after county officials backed down on their initial reports that the two companies had forced employees to work despite having COVID-19.
After county leaders posted a signed letter on social media about those allegations, Utah County Prosecutor David Leavitt then held a press conference saying he would not identify the businesses because the allegations had ultimately been unsubstantiated. He said that employers had not forced people to work. Instead, they told sick employees to go home, Leavitt said, but urged them not to “make noise to say he was sick.”
News organizations launched the legal fight over the publication of the records, arguing that, in the absence of clarity following conflicting statements from the attorney and county commissioners, the public was left to speculate whether possible political connections by the companies are protecting them. of scrutiny.
“We are very satisfied with the court ruling,” Hunt said after the judge’s decision. “As the court correctly recognized, the public has a considerable and compelling interest in the disclosure of this information, particularly in the midst of a pandemic.”
“There is a strong public interest in transparency and accountability regarding the county’s actions in this matter,” added Hunt. “Disclosure of company identities serves those interests so that the public can make their own judgments about what happened.”
