Decision Blocks Access To E-Mail Messages Called Exempt From Disclosure To Media

FOR THE RECORD: December 16, 2000: Station incorrect: Laurel Siddoway represented Spokane Televions Inc., owner of KXLY-TV, in a case involving e-mails sent by a member of the Spokane County prosecutor’s office. A story in Friday’s paper reported Siddoway represented a different station.

The state Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that e-mail generated by a former secretary for the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office are exempt from disclosure to the media because they are personal information.

Thursday’s decision reversed a Superior Court decision last year that would have permitted the messages to be released.

Gina Tiberino, 34, joined the county’s sexual assault prosecution team in August 1998, working as a legal secretary.

Two months later she reported being raped. A month later she was fired.

Deputy Prosecutor Ed Hay, who was Tiberino’s supervisor, told her she was “too focused” on her personal tragedy and was alienating other workers, according to court papers.

County officials said they fired Tiberino because she didn’t handle her duties capably.

They said that decision had nothing to do with the rape report, according to court papers.

Tiberino threatened the county with a lawsuit, though she has not filed one.

In response to the threat, the county printed all e-mail Tiberino sent or received from her work computer, according to court papers.

The county then received public records requests from The Spokesman-Review and KHQ-6.

Last year, Tiberino was denied an injunction preventing the release of the e-mail.

“We’re very pleased with the decision that’s been made,” Mary Schultz, Tiberino’s attorney said about Thursday’s reversal of the earlier ruling.

Schultz said an employer turning over an employees’ personal e-mail to the media would be the equivalent of monitoring personal “calls to home” and releasing them to the media.

The Spokesman-Review decided not to continue its efforts to obtain the e-mail after learning last year that most of the contents were personal and not related to county business.

KHQ-6 attorney Laurel Siddoway, who proceeded with the case, could not be reached for comment.

Schultz said employers have the right to monitor e-mail and telephone calls, but said they don’t have the right to humiliate someone publicly with that information, she said.

The Court of Appeals agreed.

“The fact that Tiberino sent 467 e-mails over a 40 working-day time frame is of significance in her termination action and the public has a legitimate interest in having that information,” the court said in its written decision.

“But what she said in those e-mails is of no public significance,” the court said.

“The public has no legitimate concern requiring release of the e-mails and they should be exempt from disclosure.”