On the first day of its new term, the Connecticut Supreme Court was urged Tuesday to draw "a bright line" defining when public institutions of higher education are required to release findings of professional misconduct, according to The CT Mirror.
The case stems from efforts by Jay R. Lieberman, MD, former chairman of orthopedic surgery at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington, to bar UConn from releasing documents regarding accusations that he was abusive to staff, according to the report.
In the grievance he filed Sept. 30, 2011, Michael Aronow, MD, another orthopedic surgeon at UConn, accused Dr. Lieberman, then his superior, of violating numerous accounts of the school's code of conduct. He alleged repeated occurrences of "incivility, vindictiveness, attempted intimidation, disrespectfulness and harassment," according to the report.
UConn officials initially refused to release two investigative reports to Dr. Aronow, a position the state's Freedom of Information Commission and a Superior Court judge later deemed improper. Both the commission and the judge have since ordered the documents' release.
"The grievance is public, the evidence is public, but bizarrely the end result is not," Victor R. Perpetua, the commission's lawyer, told the justices during oral arguments, according to the report. The American Association of University Professors also sided with Dr. Aronow, calling UConn's initial decision to designate the investigative findings as confidential personnel records an abuse.
UConn was not represented during the oral arguments and is no longer arguing against the release of the documents. However, Dr. Lieberman filed an appeal of a decision by a Superior Court judge who affirmed the commission's finding that the documents should be released to the public.
At issue is whether or when disciplinary records should be granted the privacy protections the General Assembly has designated to personnel evaluations for educators. The Freedom of Information Commission has voiced a narrow view of the FOI exemption, arguing it refers only to formal annual evaluations.
The Supreme Court indicated willingness to define the line between an evaluation of performance and an evaluation of misconduct by removing the case from the docket of the lower Appellate Court for a direct review by the Supreme Court, according to the report.