US Supreme Court rules traffic accident information compiled or collected for federal highway safety program not available for discovery and trial use.
A unanimous Supreme Court ruled January 14 that traffic accident information, compiled or collected by state and local agencies for use in the federal Hazard Elimination Program, is both exempt from discovery and from use in federal and state court proceedings for damages.
This case arose out of a 1996 fatal traffic accident in Pierce County. In a suit for damages, the victim’s husband sought accident information to help prove that while the county was aware of safety problems at the site of the accident, it failed to take corrective action. The county denied the discovery requests, citing an exemption provided by federal law for information compiled or collected to identify, evaluate, or plan highway safety enhancements. See 23 U.S.C. § 409. The trial court ruled in favor of the husband. An appeal was brought to the court of appeals and then to the state supreme court. The state supreme court ruled that a 1995 amendment to the federal law exceeded Congress’s authority and, accordingly, only information created for the hazard elimination program was protected from discovery or use, leaving other information, such as lists of accidents and collision diagrams, available to the plaintiff. The county appealed the state decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the Court. After disposing of a jurisdiction issue, the Justice relied on the intent of the 1995 amendment and held that accident information both compiled and collected by an agency for the purposes of the federal act was exempt from discovery and use in court proceedings. Other accident information, however, was not covered by the exemption, if it was created or gathered for reasons other than the federal act. (Thus, for example, an accident report was submitted to a law enforcement agency, it would not be exempt from disclosure; if, however, the report was later obtained by the public works department to be used for as an exhibit for a federal grant application under 23 U.S.C. § 409, it would be exempt from disclosure.) The Court also held that the federal hazard elimination program was a proper exercise of congressional power.