In January 2018, the University of California Los Angeles received a whistleblower complaint alleging that three UCLA professors had participated in serious misconduct. UCLA retained an outside law firm to investigate.
In May 2020, a 60-page investigation report stated that: the professors violated UCLA policy prohibiting improper governmental activities; two of the professors violated UCLA policy and California conflict of interest laws; one of the professors retaliated against another faculty member via ‘improper governmental activity’ in violation of the UCLA Code of Conduct, and that another professor was “involved in harassing activities.”
UCLA issued notices of intent to dismiss two of the professors effective July 2020. All three professors settled their pending disciplinary proceedings with no findings of misconduct, no adjudication regarding the report, and no admissions of liability or unlawful conduct. The professors resigned their employment in connection with their settlements.
In March 2021, a former UCLA employee, requested the report under the California Public Records Act (CPRA). The Regents of the University of California notified the former professors, who objected to the release of the report. Each of them sought a writ of mandate to withhold disclosure of the report, known as a “Marken” claim, and the cases were consolidated.
The trial court denied the petitions for writ of mandate and a preliminary injunction, allowing the Regents to release the report (with certain redactions). The trial court found while the disclosure of the report would likely compromise substantial privacy interests, the report found that the professors committed serious misconduct and provided supporting evidence to substantiate the findings. Thus, the professors did not meet their burden of establishing that the potential harm to their privacy interests outweighed the public interest in disclosure.
The trial court postponed the time for release of the documents to allow the former professors to seek appellate review. Two professors appealed.
Before the appeal could be heard, the Los Angeles Times (which was not a party in the original proceeding) made its own CPRA request. The Times requested the report, the subsequent settlement agreements between each of the three professors and UCLA, and the notices of intent to dismiss the professors. The trial court determined that the additional documents the Times requested related to well founded and substantial claims of public employee misconduct and were not exempt from disclosure under the CPRA.
The California Court of Appeal preliminarily ordered the Regents not to disclose the report or any portion of it to anyone pending resolution of the appeals. After two of the professors sought a preliminary injunction to block the notices of intent and settlement agreement (which referenced the report heavily), the Court of Appeal preliminarily blocked release of those documents also.
The appellate court affirmed the trial courts’ orders allowing the Regents to disclose the report, the notices of intent, and the settlement agreements. The court reasoned that the professors had failed to demonstrate that they were likely to prevail in blocking the release of the reports. According to the Court, the “strong public policy supporting transparency in government” inherent in the CPRA outweighed the professors’ privacy concerns, so the documents at issue would need to be made subject to disclosure. The Court of Appeal affirmed the denial of the injunction blocking release of the documents.
Doe v. Regents of the University of California, Los Angeles Times Communications LLC, 102 Cal.App.5th 766 (2024).