Harrisburg officials might have to disclose the names and addresses of donors who contributed to the Protect Harrisburg Legal Defense Fund during a legal fight over the city’s gun ordinances.

That possibility arose when the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a financial spreadsheet listing those donations is a financial record that is accessible to the public under the Right to Know Law.

The decision penned by Justice Christine Donohue overturns a Commonwealth Court ruling that supported the city’s contention that the spreadsheet wasn’t a public document as claimed by Joshua Prince, an attorney who led the fight against the city’s gun regulations.

The high court didn’t order the immediate release of the donors’ identities, however. Instead, it sent the case back to Commonwealth Court so the donors can argue whether their constitutional right to privacy would be breached by such a disclosure.

Donohue found the spreadsheet itself is a disclosable financial record under the RTKL because it documents money received by the city. Harrisburg officials created the defense fund to help defray the legal fees of defending its gun control ordinances.

The fund received $5,000 in donations in a week before Prince filed a RTKL request in February 2015 seeking the identities of the donors. No more donations came in after that.

The battle went to the Office of Open Records and then to the Dauphin County and state courts after the city turned over to Prince a redacted version of the spreadsheet that did not include the names, addresses or phone numbers of the contributors. Prince contended that information also is public.

In stopping short of ordering the release of the donor names, Donohue cited several recent rulings by her court that require a balance must be struck in disclosing what might be private personal information on otherwise public documents.

She cited the city’s claim that Prince wants the donor names so he can harass the contributors. By contrast, Donohue noted, Prince contends the release of the donors’ identities is justified “because the public should be privy to information about who is funding government action.”

The donors to the Harrisburg fund were not notified that they had the right to be heard by the courts regarding objections to the release of their names and other information, Donohue noted.

So, she concluded, they must be given that chance. Donohue sent the case back to Commonwealth Court with the directive that “the privacy interests of those individuals whose personal information would be disclosed must be weighed against the public’s interest in disclosure.”