Termination notices concerning a former top official at a now-defunct agency that ran foster care and substance use support services in West Virginia are public information, a state appeals court ruled this week in favor of a television station that was denied the notices.
West Virginia Intermediate Court of Appeals Chief Judge Thomas E. Scarr said public concern over the firing of Jeremiah Samples, a former deputy secretary of Health and Human Services who was the second-ranking official at the state’s largest agency, outweighs concerns about privacy violations.
“Public officials have a diminished right to privacy when it comes to records relating to their performance, particularly records relating to the conduct of senior public officials,” he wrote in a ruling released Thursday, overturning a Kanawha County Circuit Court ruling from last year.
West Virginia governor lifts state of emergency for prison staff after nearly two years
The appeals court judges asked a lower court to order the Department of Health and Human Services to release a letter written by former Health and Human Resources Secretary Bill Crouch to Huntington-based television station WSAZ.
Crouch fired Samples in April 2022 at a time when the Department of Health and Human Services was under intense scrutiny for its operations. Lawmakers voted last year to dismantle the department and split it into three separate agencies after repeated concerns about a lack of transparency about cases of abuse and neglect. Crouch subsequently retired in December 2022.
Samples released a statement after his firing, alleging that the department had “struggled to make progress and even lost progress in many important areas.”
Seen here is the dome of the West Virginia State Capitol in Charleston, West Virginia. (AP Photo/Jeff Gentner, File)
Specifically, he said the department’s responsibilities in addressing child welfare, substance use disorders, protecting vulnerable populations, managing state health facilities and other department responsibilities “fell short of everyone’s expectations, especially my own expectations,” and cited differences of opinion with Secretary Crouch on those issues.
WSAZ has filed an open records request seeking information regarding Samples’ resignation or firing, as well as email correspondence between Samples and Crouch.
The request was denied, and the station filed a lawsuit against the state.
Lawyers for the state argued that releasing the letter would be an invasion of privacy and that an exception to the state’s open records law protects it from disclosure.
The circuit court sided with the state on the termination letter but ruled that the network must provide other emails and records requested by WSAZ. In fulfilling that request, the network mistakenly included an unredacted copy of the unsigned draft termination letter.
In the draft letter, Secretary Crouch harshly criticized Samples’ work, saying Samples’ failure to communicate with Secretary Crouch was “an example of misconduct and insubordination that impedes, or at least delays, the performance of the Department’s mission.”
He accuses Samples of actively opposing Crouch’s policy decisions and trying to “circumvent those decisions” by imposing his own “policy position”, resulting in “confusion” in the department and “delays in getting things done” within the department.
The agency tried to block WSAZ from releasing a draft of the letter, but a court ruled in August 2023 that it was WSAZ’s right under the First Amendment to make the letter public once it was sent to the station. Samples told WSAZ at the time that he supported transparency but that the draft contained “a number of falsehoods” about him and his work.
In their ruling this week, the Court of Appeal judges said the fact that the draft had been made public only strengthened the broadcaster’s case against the final letter.
The purpose of the Freedom of Information Act’s privacy exemption is to protect individuals from “injury or embarrassment that may result from unnecessary disclosure of personal information,” Scarr wrote.
Click here to get the FOX News app
“The conduct of public officials in the performance of their official duties is not the kind of information that should be protected by FOIA,” he said, adding that “while FOIA does protect personal information about employees, it does not protect information related to their work.”
