A Uniontown newspaper did not have the right to view the cell phone records of a state representative, even though that representative allowed other reporters to see them, the state's Supreme Court has ruled.

The court last week affirmed a March ruling from the state Commonwealth Court.

Uniontown's Herald-Standard and former reporter Paul Sunyak sued state Rep. Larry Roberts in 2000, asserting that the paper should have access to view Mr. Robert's phone records because the bills are paid for by taxpayers, thereby making the bills a public document.

The paper's attorneys also made the argument that Mr. Roberts violated the reporter's rights of equal protection because he offered the records to other media outlets.

In 2002, the Commonwealth Court dismissed the entire suit. On appeal, though, the Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of the newspaper's public document claims, but ordered the lower court to re-examine the equal protection issue argued on behalf of the reporter.

Commonwealth Court eventually dismissed those claims, too, and last week, the Supreme Court upheld the dismissal with a one-sentence order.

The Herald-Standard's publisher, Val J. Laub, told his own paper that the decision was an appalling blow to those who hope to put a dent in Pennsylvania's atrocious open-records laws.

"However, behind every cloud is a silver lining," he told the paper, "and I believe that the judicial actions of our state courts will serve the media industry well by inciting newspapers across the state to continue the battle to move Pennsylvania from one of the worst states in the country for access to public records, to a much needed higher level."

Mr. Roberts, a Democrat who arrived in the House in 1993, declined to run again this year. In recent years, he had been beset by not only the open-records lawsuit, but also a nasty divorce, a bizarre mortgage forgery case, and a rare case of chronic hiccups that left him hospitalized for weeks.