Lawson v. Sequoyah Cnty. 911 Trust Auth.

• Citation: 521 P.3d 827
• Decision Date: 29 July 2022
• Docket Number: Case No. 120,533
• Parties: James LAWSON, d/b/a AAA Lawson Bail Bonds, LLC, Plaintiff/Appellant, v. SEQUOYAH COUNTY 911 TRUST AUTHORITY and David Slaughter in his Official [sic] as Director of the Sequoyah County 911 Trust Authority, Defendants/Appellees.
• Court: United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma

521 P.3d 827

James LAWSON, d/b/a AAA Lawson Bail Bonds, LLC, Plaintiff/Appellant,

v.SEQUOYAH COUNTY 911 TRUST AUTHORITY and David Slaughter in his Official [sic] as Director of the Sequoyah County 911 Trust Authority, Defendants/Appellees.

Case No. 120,533

Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma, Division No. 3.

Decided: July 29, 2022

Rehearing Denied: October 14, 2022

Mandate Issued: November 9, 2022

Jana L. Knott, BASS LAW, P.C., Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Plaintiffs/Appellants,

Fourth Scoufos, Jordan L. Pace, SCOUFOS LAW OFFICES, P.C., Sallisaw, Oklahoma, for Defendants/Appellees.

OPINION BY THOMAS E. PRINCE, PRESIDING JUDGE:

¶1 The controversy at issue in this case involves the policy of the Sequoyah County 911 Trust Authority to refer private individuals to the Court Clerk's Office or to the on-line source found at www.odcr.com when warrant information has been requested. Although summary judgment was granted to the Defendants¹ on all of the claims for relief asserted below, the Appellant, James Lawson, D/B/A AAA Lawson Bail Bonds, LLC ("Lawson"), has only appealed the trial court's entry of summary judgment in favor of the Defendants with respect to the declaratory judgment claim for relief and, specifically, whether the 911 Authority's policy at issue here violates 51 O.S. § 24A.8, of the Open Records Act. We hold that summary judgment was erroneously granted to the Defendants on the declaratory judgment claim concerning the policy of the 911 Authority and, that, conversely, Lawson is entitled to summary judgment on that claim. Subject to the holding in this Opinion, the trial court's Order of June 2, 2022, is affirmed in all other respects. Thus, the trial court's order of June 2, 2022, is affirmed, in part, and reversed, in part.

BACKGROUND

¶2 Lawson, a bail bondsman operating in Sequoyah County, Oklahoma, filed this Open Records Act² lawsuit on September 30, 2021, stemming from a series of telephone calls he had made on May 23, 2020. In an effort to learn information regarding an outstanding warrant on a specific person, Lawson first called the Sequoyah County Sheriff's Office and then David Slaughter, Director of the Sequoyah County 911 Trust Authority. Both the Sheriff's Office and Slaughter advised Lawson to contact the Sequoyah County Court Clerk's office to obtain the information he was seeking.³ Slaughter accepted the call while outside the office, as the call was forwarded to his cell phone while he was "driving down the road".

¶3 Lawson never asked to inspect or copy any records. He was seeking a verbal response over the phone regarding information that was publically available on the www.odcr.com website. Lawson agreed in his deposition that he never asked to come down to the 911 Authority's Office and see a copy of the warrant or make a copy of it.⁴

¶4 The 911 Authority is a public trust that has contracted with the Sequoyah County Sheriff's Office to provide emergency and non-emergency communications services for the Sheriff's Office. Slaughter is employed as the 911 Coordinator for Sequoyah County. While the 911 Authority has access to the information available in the Nation Crime Information Center ("NCIC") (which does not provide a view of the actual warrant), it receives copies of all warrants issued in Sequoyah County. The Court Clerk's Office sends over a copy of all Sequoyah County warrants to the 911 Authority. Slaughter testified in his deposition that "[w]e don't get the information as soon as it's edited over in the court clerk's office. We get that information when they walk the information over to us. So there could be — there could be any type of time delay."⁵ Slaughter testified that the Court Clerk's Office provides his office with copies of warrants, together with any updates, whether a warrant has been recalled, any changes in the bond amount, and any changes in a bond's conditions.⁶

¶5 Slaughter further testified, regarding the 911 Authority's policies, that, in the event a member of the general public called and asked for "some specific information ...", he "would request they come to my office so they could review those records".⁷ Regarding information concerning warrants, however, Slaughter testified that the 911 Authority "refer[s] "everyone to the court clerk's office or ODCR [i.e., www.odcr.com ] to get the latest information."⁸ He also testified that his office specifically does not give that information out over the phone: "[w]e don't do that. We're not sure of the accuracy of the information ...".⁹ On the other hand, he testified that, if a member of law enforcement requested such information, they "would give him the information * * * and ... do whatever ... [they] can to assist the law enforcement officer...".¹⁰

¶6 Although the Petition filed by Lawson appeared, on its face, to assert only one claim for relief, imbedded therein were two separate contentions: i.e., first, as asserted in ¶ 7 of the Petition, that the Defendants violated the Open Records Act in regard to the telephonic request for information on May 23, 2020; and, secondly, as asserted in ¶ 8 of the Petition, that the 911 Authority "established a policy for public inspection of documents in violation of the Open Records Act ...".

¶7 The Defendants filed a Motion for Summary Judgment on March 8, 2022, which only addressed the assertion included in ¶ 7 of the Petition: i.e., that summary judgment was appropriate because Lawson "never requested to inspect or copy the document at issue, i.e., an arrest warrant."¹¹ The Plaintiff's Response filed March 31, 2022, did not contest any of the material facts set out in the Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment. The Response by Lawson argued that "[n]othing in the statute prohibits the agency from providing the requested information over the phone ..." and also that the policy of the 911 Authority violates the Open Records Act because, when warrant information is requested by a private individual, the 911 Authority "refer[s] them to the Court Clerk's Office or to Oklahoma District Court Records (ODCR)."¹² A hearing was held on April 14, 2022. The trial court, thereafter, entered an Order Granting Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment (on June 2, 2022), finding "that at no time did [Lawson] ... request to inspect and/or copy any records kept or maintained by Defendant, and at no time did Defendant fail, refuse or otherwise neglect to make any such documents available for public inspection and copying in violation of the Oklahoma Open Records Act ...". Despite the fact that no separate finding was made by the trial court on the validity of the policy of the 911 Authority that is at issue, the trial court granted the Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment and entered a final judgment in favor of the Defendants on all issues, as demonstrated by the specific determination in the trial court's order of June 2, 2022, that "Plaintiff's Petition is ... dismissed". This timely appeal followed.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶8 Examination of a grant of summary judgment requires appellate courts to determine whether the record actually presented reveals disputed material facts. Id. ; see also Weeks v. Wedgewood Village, Inc. , 1976 OK 72, ¶ 12, 554 P.2d 780, 784 (holding that rulings on motions for summary judgment are "to be made on the record the parties have actually presented and not on a record which is potentially possible"); Okla. D. Ct. R. 13(a) (explaining that "[a] party may move for [ ] summary judgment ... on the merits on the ground that the evidentiary material filed with the motion or subsequently filed with leave of court show that there is no substantial controversy as to any material fact") (emphases added). In order to determine whether there is a controversy as to any material fact, appellate courts examine--"in a light most favorable to the nonmoving party," Tiger v. Verdigris Valley Electric Cooperative , 2016 OK 74, ¶ 13, 410 P.3d 1007, 1011 (citation omitted)--"the pleadings, affidavits, depositions, admissions, or other evidentiary materials" supporting the motion for summary judgment. Evers v. FSF Overlake Association , 2003 OK 53, ¶ 9, 77 P.3d 581, 584 (citation omitted). Grants of summary judgment are proper, and will be affirmed, when the evidentiary materials show "there is no substantial controversy as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Lowery v. Echostar Satellite Corp. , 2007 OK 38, ¶ 11, 160 P.3d 959, 963–64 (citation omitted).

ANALYSIS

¶9 This appeal is pending before the Court under Rule 1.36, Sup.Ct.R., regarding Accelerated Procedure for Summary Judgments and Certain Dismissals, and that, under that Rule, briefing by the Parties is not allowed (except as may be ordered by the appellate court). Pursuant to Rule 1.36(g), the Court "confines its review to the record actually presented to the trial court." Moreover, based on Rule 1.26(a) & (b), in light of Rule 1.36(g), we consider the legal issues to be presented to be only those issues identified or raised by Lawson in the Exhibit "C" attached to his Petition in Error. This is relevant because Lawson did not raise, as an issue in this appeal, whether the trial court erred with respect to its finding that summary judgment in favor of the Defendants was appropriate in relation to the incident of May 23, 2020. Additionally, although two issues were facially identified or raised in Lawson's Petition in Error, we view the Petition in Error to have essentially raised only one issue: i.e., whether the 911 Authority's policy concerning requests from the general public for information regarding warrants violates the Open Records Act.¹³

¶10 There is no dispute here that the 911 Authority is subject to the Open Records Act. See 51 O.S. § § 24A.3(2) (defining a "public body" to include "any entity created by a trust, county ... supported in whole or in part by public funds or entrusted with the expenditure of public funds or administering or operating...