On August 14, 2015, the
Baltimore City Circuit Court held
that information about crude oil movements by rail must be publicly available in
accordance with the Maryland
Public Information Act (PIA).
In 2014, Norfolk
Southern Railway Company (Norfolk) filed a lawsuit against Maryland Department
of the Environment (Department) seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in
order to prevent the Department from publicly disclosing Norfolk’s DOT
notification records under the PIA. On May 7, 2014, the U.S. Department of
Transportation issued an Emergency
Restriction Order requiring railroad companies to provide
the State Emergency Response Commission (SERC) with information regarding train
movements “for each state in which it operates trains transporting 1,000,000
gallons or more of Bakken crude oil.”
Following the Emergency
Order, Norfolk signed a non-disclosure agreement with the Department.
Subsequently, the Department proposed to release Norfolk’s notification records
arguing that the non-disclosure agreement was invalid. Norfolk contended that
said notification records were confidential commercial information and their
disclosure would likely cause substantial competitive injury. It also argued
that the notification records contained trade secrets.
The Court concluded that
Norfolk’s DOT notification records did not contain either confidential
commercial information or trade secrets because the information is not specific
to Norfolk’s operations.
Further information on
the case is available at docket no. 24-C-14-004367 or http://casesearch.courts.state.md.us/casesearch/inquiryByCaseNum.jis.
Written by Chloe Marie - Research Fellow
08/25/2015
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