Poole

Under the Firefighters Procedural Bill of Rights Act (Gov. Code, § 3250 et seq.), 1 a firefighter has the right to review and respond to any negative comment that is “entered in his or her personnel file, or any other file used for any personnel purposes by his or her employer.” (§ 3255.) This case presents the question whether section 3255 *1382 gives an employee the right to review and respond to negative comments in a supervisor’s daily log, consisting of notes that memorialize the supervisor’s thoughts and observations concerning an employee, which the supervisor uses as a memory aid in preparing performance plans and reviews. We hold that here, because the log was not shared with or available to anyone other than the supervisor who wrote the log, it does not constitute a file “used for any personnel purposes by his or her employer” and section 3255 does not apply.

I. Facts

Captain Culp, plaintiff Steve Poole’s supervisor, maintained what he called a “daily log” regarding each of the employees that he supervised. He created the log using both a computer and handwritten notes. He created a separate file for each employee, stored on a flash drive and also in hard…

Concurring. — Today the court strikes a careful balance between firefighters’ procedural protections and the realities that supervisors confront when managing public organizations. The foundation for the court’s opinion is its interpretation of the Firefighters Procedural Bill of Rights Act (Gov. Code, § 3250 et seq.), and the logic of that interpretation is unassailable. I nonetheless write separately to underscore an important principle *1391 about the interpretive responsibilities that are so often at the heart of what we do. The bottom line is this: however important it is to train our attention on the plain meaning of the statutory provision we are construing, we must read that provision as we do here — in its larger context — when deciding whether its meaning is plain.

Suppose a statute is enacted with provisions similar to the ones at issue in this case. “Any public employee,” the statute provides, “has a right to review personnel files that are used or have been used to determine the employee’s qualifications for employment, promotion, or discipline.” The question later arises whether a supervisor’s hastily scrawled note on a napkin about a subordinate’s performance —…

I. FACTS

Captain Culp, plaintiff Steve Poole‟s supervisor, maintained what he called a “daily log” regarding each of the employees that he supervised. He created the log using both a computer and handwritten notes. He created a separate file for each employee, stored on a flash drive and also in hard copy, which he kept in his desk with the employee‟s name on it. He included in the log “[a]ny factual occurrence or occurrences that would aid [him] in writing a thorough and fair annual review.” He kept these logs throughout the time he was supervising each employee. Culp would address with the employee behavior recorded in the log about which he had concerns, and if the behavior nevertheless continued it might be mentioned in the performance review. Culp kept the log concerning plaintiff from December of 2008 to July of 2010. He used the log as a reference in preparing annual reviews and assessments of plaintiff‟s performance under a performance improvement plan. The daily log prepared by Culp regarding plaintiff included many descriptions of plaintiff‟s activities on the job and his interactions with Culp, noting both positive and negative aspects of plaintiff‟s behavior. Some of…