The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has just issued a decision fully upholding a federal district court's ruling that allows law enforcement disciplinary records to be made public in New York, except for certain specific records specified in the district court's ruling. It was a very important ruling because it paves the way for almost full disclosure of law enforcement disciplinary records, which for decades were shielded from public disclosure under Section 50-a of the New York Civil Rights Law, which was enacted to protect those records from being made public. Last year, the New York State Legislature repealed Section 50-a, and as a result law enforcement disciplinary records could have been made public. But several unions, representing the New York City Police Department, the New York City Fire Department, and others, moved in federal district court for a preliminary injunction against disclosure by New York City of allegations of misconduct against their members that were unsubstantiated, unfounded, non-final, or that resulted in an exoneration or a finding of not guilty. The case, Uniformed Fire Officers Association v. DeBlasio, was decided on Aug. 21, 2020. The District Court denied the plaintiffs' request for an injunction barring the disclosure of most disciplinary records and allegations of misconduct, and only granted the injunction for a narrow and specific category of records.

The plaintiffs appealed to the Second Circuit. The unions claimed that the planned disclosures that were permitted by the District Court would violate provisions of their collective bargaining agreements. The District Court had ruled that the disclosures would not conflict with the provision in the collective bargaining agreements that stated that NYPD should remove from a personnel file investigative reports which upon completion of the investigation and classified as exonerated or unfounded, because that provision only applied to personnel files, and did not mandate eliminating the reports from all of the City's records. The District Court further ruled that because these reports included records that must be disclosed under New York's Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), the NYPD could not enjoin the disclosure of records that FOIL mandates be disclosed. The Second Circuit affirmed the District Court's ruling, stating that to the extent that union's claim implicates records that must be disclosed under FOIL, "the NYPD cannot bargain away its disclosure obligations" (citing Matter of M. Farbman & Sons v. N.Y.C. Health & Hosps., 62 N.Y.2d 75, 80 (1984). The Second Circuit ruled that the District Court was within its discretion in concluding that the unions failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits in the arbitration of this claim.

The unions also claimed that if the records that the District Court allowed to be released were to be made public, law enforcement officers might have fewer employment opportunities in the future once the allegations against them are disclosed, even if they proved to be unfounded or unsubstantiated. The District Court disagreed, noting that the unions had presented no evidence that the availability of such records would result in harm to any officer's employment opportunities. The Second Circuit concurred, ruling that the District Court had not abused its discretion when it determined that the unions had failed to demonstrate irreparable harm to officer's employment opportunities. The unions further argued that the release of disciplinary records might increase danger and safety risks to police officers, but the District Court determined that the unions did not sufficiently demonstrate those risks. The Second Circuit concurred, noting that other states make similar records available to the public without any evidence of resulting danger to police officers.