Last month, the Cuyahoga County Court of Appeals affirmed $1,000 in damages and $4,762.50 in attorneys’ fees for the plaintiff union which sought a month’s worth of emails involving three employees under Ohio’s public records law. State ex rel. Cleveland Assn. of Rescue Emps. v. Cleveland, 2022-Ohio-3043. The requested records involved how a data breach affected employee payroll records and the union sought information about this issue by seeking all emails between two employees and all of the emails to and from another employee. Although the employer objected that the request was overly broad and unduly burdensome and insisted that the union narrow its request, it eventually produced approximately 300 pages to the union’s satisfaction. The Court ruled that the union’s initial request was entirely proper and limited in scope (i.e. a month and three employees). The Court also found that the employer acted with bad faith in refusing service of process which was addressed to predecessor employees. Therefore, it awarded the union the statutory maximum damages and their attorneys’ fees in enforcing the public records request.
In Ohio, public records are the people’s records. To that end, the public records act is to be construed liberally in favor of broad access and disclosure. The courts are to resolve any doubt in favor of disclosure. State ex rel. Plain Dealer Publishing Co. v. Cleveland, 106 Ohio St.3d 70, 2005-Ohio-3807, 831 N.E.2d 987, ¶ 20. Exemptions to disclosure under the public records act must be strictly construed against the public records custodian, and the government bears the burden of establishing the applicability of an exception. State ex rel. Morgan v. New Lexington, 112 Ohio St.3d 33, 2006-Ohio-6365, 857 N.E.2d 1208, ¶ 47.
Applying these principles, the court finds that the initial request was reasonable. It stated with clarity what records were requested, and the scope was limited to three specific Cleveland employees for a period of less than a month. A records requester is not necessarily required to limit its request by adding search terms. The failure to honor reasonable requests and the rapid closing of requests undermine the purpose of the public records act.
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you of recent legal developments. It does not constitute legal advice and does
not apply to any particular situation because different facts could lead to
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