Greenhalgh v. Washington State Office of Attorney General

Decision Date06 December 2011
Docket Number41249-7-II
CourtWashington Court of Appeals
PartiesShawn D. Greenhalgh, Appellant, v. WASHINGTON STATE OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent.

UNPUBLISHED OPINION

Van Deren, J.

Shawn D. Greenhalgh appeals the trial court's summary judgment order dismissing his claims under the public records act (PRA), chapter 42.56 RCW, against the Washington State Office of the Attorney General (AGO). Greenhalgh contends that summary judgment was improper because the AGO's record search in response to his PRA request was not reasonable, and that penalties should be assessed against the AGO for its failure to provide e-mail "metadata." He also complains that the AGO's charges for electronic copies of responsive records was excessive and improper, and that he is entitled to attorney fees. We affirm.

FACTS

This case concerns three overlapping PRA requests submitted to the AGO by Greenhalgh, a prisoner at the Monroe Correctional Complex.

I December 2007 Request (PRR-2007-00473)

Greenhalgh submitted a PRA request to the AGO in December 2007 based on his concern that the AGO was involved in supporting new legislation that might curb inmates' use of the PRA. Greenhalgh's letter, dated December 6, 2007, and received by the AGO on December 10, 2007, requested all records pertaining to the AGO's efforts to obtain legislation to modify the PRA. Jerome Lord, an AGO public records officer responded to the letter on December 17, 2007, indicating that 10 business days would be necessary to identify and gather records responsive to Greenhalgh's request, which Lord designated as PRR-2007-00473. Lord sent Greenhalgh another letter, dated January 2, 2008, extending the collection period to January 11 because responsive records continued to be located.

Then in a letter dated January 15, 2008, Greenhalgh narrowed his request to "[a]ny and all records pertaining to the [AGO] currently requesting new legislation pertaining to the [PRA], as pertains to prisoners only." Clerk's Papers (CP) at 55 (emphasis added). The AGO received Greenhalgh's letter on January 17.

On January 17, Lord sent a letter to Greenhalgh indicating that the "first batch of records" would be available on January 28. CP at 56. Lord identified 181 pages of responsive documents and requested payment of $22.70 prior to the AGO's production of the first batch of records ($18.10 for paper copies at $0.10 per page plus $4.60 for postage). Greenhalgh replied, asking for the first and last pages from the packet and every 10th page in between—e.g., the 10th, the 20th, the 30th, etc.—without enclosing payment for the pages he specified. The AGO received this letter on January 30. The next day, Lord mailed Greenhalgh the 20 requested pages, without first requiring payment, and stated to Greenhalgh that his record request was complete and considered closed.

Subsequently by letter dated February 9, Greenhalgh asked Lord to provide "[a]ll emails in the 181 responsive documents not already produced with your January 31, 2008 letter." CP at 61. Two days later, Lord sent another letter to Greenhalgh indicating there were 132 additional pages of e-mails not already sent to Greenhalgh and instructing Greenhalgh to pay $21.11 for copying and postage for all the pages, including the pages Greenhalgh had already received. Greenhalgh never paid this sum to the AGO.

In a February 26 letter, Greenhalgh asked Lord to provide the remaining 132 pages "in electronic format" and a cost letter for the compact disc (CD) and postage. CP at 63. On March 3, 2008, Lord responded by letter quoting a price of $27.90 for the cost of scanning copies of documents into a portable document format, copying or "burning" the records to a CD, and then mailing the CD in an envelope (sleeve) to Greenhalgh.[1]

In response, on March 24, Greenhalgh wrote and asked for one specific page of the records he requested in his December 6, 2007 letter to be burned onto a CD and mailed to him. He enclosed $14.82, calculated to pay for the $12.50 flat set up fee for scanning any number of pages, the per page scanned copy fee for the requested record, the cost of the CD and CD sleeve, and cost of postage. Greenhalgh's letter also advised that he objected to the AGO's "excessive charges and fees." CP at 65. On April 7, Lord mailed Greenhalgh the CD containing the single requested page and indicated that "this request is now complete and we will now consider it closed." CP at 66.

II. June 2008 Request (PRR-2008-00341)

On June 5, Greenhalgh filed a new public records request referring to records that he had requested in December 2007.[2] In his June 5 letter, he referred to the closed public records request by number (PRR-2007-00473) and requested "any and all [of] the e-mails responsive to the above-referenced request, in their original format, not the electronic format you previously offered them in (Scanned)." CP at 68.

Lord responded by letter on June 13, designating this request as PRR-2008-00341, and indicating that 20 additional business days would be necessary to respond to Greenhalgh's request. In a July 15 letter, Lord informed Greenhalgh that 132 pages of responsive records were available but, because the records were provided to Lord in hard copy paper form, he could only provide paper copies or copies scanned to a CD. Lord's letter also included a breakdown of the actual cost to provide the records in either hard copy paper form or electronic format, and said that Lord would provide the records in whichever format Greenhalgh preferred, if he submitted payment by August 16. Greenhalgh did not pay this sum to the AGO.

From August through October, Greenhalgh and the AGO's Public Records Constituent Services unit (PRCS) exchanged letters in which Greenhalgh asked for justification for the copying fees and formatting of the records.[3] The last correspondence with Greenhalgh in this exchange was an October 13 letter from Lord's supervisor, K.P. Bodnar, to which she attached copies of relevant RCWs and WACs authorizing copying costs, and which further explained the costs incurred to produce records in electronic format. The PRCS never received payment from Greenhalgh for any records requested under PRR-2008-00341.

III. January 2008 Request (PRR-2008-00038)

In addition to the PRA requests in December 2007 and June 2008, Greenhalgh filed a PRA request via a letter dated January 14, 2008, in which Greenhalgh designated the following "[s]pecific [r]ecords [r]equested, " "The first page of each and every Washington State 'Attorney General's Office Certificate on Public Records Act Claim/Litigation [Settlements, ]' involving the Washington State Department of Corrections and inmate-petitioners, dated between January 1, 2005 and January 1, 2008." CP at 86 (underline and capitalization omitted) (fourth alteration in original). The AGO received the request on January 17, 2008, and assigned the matter to Lord.

Lord searched the AGO's "electronic mail vault, " using the title that Greenhalgh provided, but found no responsive documents. CP at 48. Lord then searched the AGO's Case Management System (CMS) for the title used by Greenhalgh, but again found no responsive documents. Lord conferred with Bodnar, and together they searched the e-mail vault and CMS, but found no records responsive to Greenhalgh's articulated request.

On January 25, Lord notified Greenhalgh that "[w]e have searched our records and do not have any documents responsive to your request. Because there are no responsive documents, we will now consider your request closed." CP at 88. Greenhalgh had no further communication with the AGO regarding this request before filing the present lawsuit, which was served on the AGO in February 2009.

Greenhalgh's complaint faults the AGO for failing to conduct an adequate search for documents in response to his January 14, 2008, request, pointing to the documents the AGO sent to another inmate in response to that inmate's subsequent similar request.[4] The other inmate, Clark George, [5] submitted his request to the AGO on March 21, 2008, and the request was assigned to Bodnar. CP at 108. George's request in part sought "[e]ach and every State of Washington 'Attorney General's Office Certificate on Public Records Act Claim/Litigation, ' involving the State of Washington Department of Corrections and inmate-petitioners, dated January 1, 2005 through March 1, 2008." CP at 112. Using the title description that George had provided, Bodnar searched the CMS and the e-mail vault and found no responsive records. On March 27, 2008, Bodnar told George by letter that the records he requested could not be located and that his request would be considered closed.

Several months later, on August 7, 2008, George sent the AGO a letter with an attached sample document that contained a legend at the top of the page stating, "ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE CERTIFICATE ON PUBLIC RECORDS ACT CLAIM/LITIGATION." CP at 115. George's letter requested that the AGO take another look at his request and produce all such certificates.[6]

Bodnar then contacted the other AGO divisions and asked them to use the information from the sample document as a basis to search for records. The corrections division did locate 16 pages of documents responsive to George's request, which Bodnar sent to George on September 19.

After Lord saw Greenhalgh's complaint in February 2009, he asked Bodnar if she was familiar with George's request. Bodnar recalled the situation involving George, but when she sent the records to George in September 2008, she did not make the connection between George's request and Greenhalgh's similar request in January 2008, which had been assigned to Lord. Only when Greenhalgh served his PRA claim on the AGO did...

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