Mancini Law Grp., P.C. v. Schaumburg Police Dep't

• Decision Date: 16 December 2021
• Docket Number: Docket No. 126675
• Citation: 2021 IL 126675,190 N.E.3d 744,454 Ill.Dec. 762
• Parties: MANCINI LAW GROUP, P.C., Appellant, v. The SCHAUMBURG POLICE DEPARTMENT, Appellee.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

2021 IL 126675

190 N.E.3d 744

454 Ill.Dec. 762

MANCINI LAW GROUP, P.C., Appellant,

v.The SCHAUMBURG POLICE DEPARTMENT, Appellee.

Docket No. 126675

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Opinion filed December 16, 2021

Matthew Topic, Joshua Burday, and Merrick Wayne, of Loevy & Loevy, of Chicago, for appellant.

Lance C. Malina and Mallory A. Milluzzi, of Klein, Thorpe & Jenkins, Ltd., of Chicago, for appellee.

JUSTICE GARMAN delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 Mancini Law Group, P.C. (Mancini Law Group), filed a request, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) ( 5 ILCS 140/1 et seq. (West 2016)), seeking copies of traffic accident reports from the Schaumburg Police Department (Department). The Department's response indicated that certain information was redacted from the traffic accident reports. Relevant here, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. See 735 ILCS 5/2-1005 (West 2016). The circuit court of Cook County held that the Department had met its burden in demonstrating that the information at issue was exempt. The circuit court also rejected Mancini Law Group's argument that the Department was precluded from asserting that the information was exempt because it had voluntarily provided unredacted traffic accident reports to LexisNexis, a third-party vendor approved by the State of Illinois for purposes of assisting the Department in satisfying its mandatory reporting obligations under the Illinois Vehicle Code. See 625 ILCS 5/11-408 (West 2016). Mancini Law Group appealed only the issue of whether the Department was barred from arguing that the information was exempt based on its arrangement with LexisNexis. A majority of the appellate court panel affirmed. See 2020 IL App (1st) 191131-U, ¶ 25, 2020 WL 6151497. We allowed Mancini Law Group's petition for leave to appeal. See Ill. S. Ct. R. 315 (eff. Oct. 1, 2020).

¶ 2 BACKGROUND

¶ 3 On July 13, 2017, Mancini Law Group sent a commercial FOIA request¹ to the Department seeking disclosure of all traffic accident reports for all motor vehicle accidents having occurred within the Village of Schaumburg between June 30, 2017, and July 13, 2017. In its request, Mancini Law Group asked that the Department redact certain personal information, including driver's license numbers, license plates, and dates of birth of the parties involved. On August 7, 2017, the Department informed Mancini Law Group that the request was granted in part and denied in part. The Department provided redacted accident reports, asserting that section 7(1)(b) of FOIA ( 5 ILCS 140/7(1)(b) (West 2016)) exempted private information contained in the reports, specifically including driver's license numbers, personal telephone numbers, home addresses, and personal license plates. Additionally, the Department relied upon section 7(1)(c) of FOIA (id. § 7(1)(c)) in redacting dates of birth and policy account numbers. The names of those involved in the accidents—including drivers and witnesses—were left unredacted.

¶ 4 Mancini Law Group filed suit² on October 17, 2017, alleging that the Department had willfully and intentionally violated FOIA by refusing to produce unredacted accident reports. See id. § 11(a) ("Any person denied access to inspect or copy any public record by a public body may file suit for injunctive or declaratory relief.").

On October 27, 2017, the Department filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to section 2-619 of the Code of Civil Procedure ( 735 ILCS 5/2-619 (West 2016) ), which was denied. Thereafter, Mancini Law Group and the Department filed cross-motions for summary judgment, which were fully briefed.³

¶ 5 In its order, the circuit court noted that Mancini Law Group raised the issue of voluntary disclosure for the first time in its reply to its motion for summary judgment. Specifically, Mancini Law Group cited Lieber v. Board of Trustees of Southern Illinois University , 176 Ill. 2d 401, 413, 223 Ill.Dec. 641, 680 N.E.2d 374 (1997), for the proposition that, because the Department had provided unredacted copies of traffic accident reports to LexisNexis, it could not refuse to provide those records to Mancini Law Group. Mancini Law Group attached an affidavit of one of its attorneys, Michael Camarata, to show that he was able to purchase unredacted traffic accident reports from LexisNexis on numerous occasions. Attached to the affidavit was an e-mail-generated receipt from LexisNexis and a copy of an unredacted traffic accident report.

¶ 6 In its response, the Department argued first that Lieber is no longer good law in light of the 2010 amendments to FOIA. Furthermore, the Department contended that Lieber considered a different exemption under FOIA than that at issue here. Finally, the Department alternatively asserted that Lieber is distinguishable. Specifically, the Department explained in part:

"Here, the facts establish that Lexis-Nexis only receives as a verified third-party vendor for the State of Illinois in order to allow the Village to comply with the mandated reporting under the Illinois Vehicle Code. [Citation.] The crash reports are uploaded into approved software that is managed through both a contract between the Village and Lexis-Nexis and additionally, Lexis-Nexis has a contract with the State of Illinois. [Citations.] Contrary to the Plaintiff's argument that there are no restrictions on what LexisNexis can provide, Ms. Brack testified that the Village has monitored and restricted access to police reports to try and keep confidential information safe and that the agreement with LexisNexis requires compliance with FOIA. [Citation.]

A key distinction in this case compared to Lieber is that Lexis-Nexis is not receiving these reports through a FOIA request or for preferential treatment. In fact, Lexis-Nexis routinely submits FOIA requests for accident reports and has to go through the same process as everyone else and is subject to redactions. [Citation.] They do not merely access the crash report database to pull the reports they want without paying. [Citation.] Rather, LexisNexis receives these reports as part of the Village's state mandating [sic ] reporting. This is very different than the situation in Lieber , where the documents were disclosed to the newspapers and part of the public domain. These were not in the public domain, but are managed on a server and only accessible to limited individuals and privacy agreements."

¶ 7 The circuit court rejected the Department's arguments that the 2010 amendments to FOIA overruled Lieber and that Lieber was not on point because it addressed a different FOIA exemption. The court observed that it could decline to consider Mancini Law Group's arguments regarding Lieber and voluntary disclosure because Mancini had not raised the argument in its opening motion for summary judgment but would address the argument based upon the Department's acquiescence.

¶ 8 The circuit court concluded that Lieber was distinguishable, explaining:

"In Lieber , the university selectively and voluntarily disclosed the disputed requested information to other third parties on a routine basis, while here, there is no evidence of the Department voluntarily or selectively releasing such information previously requested by Mancini to other third parties. Rather, any disclosure by the Village is to comply with Illinois law. Specifically, the Village is statutorily mandated to provide similar information, namely un-redacted accident reports, to Lexis Nexis to comply with the Vehicle Code's mandatory reporting requirements. *** The Court finds that this disclosure to LexisNexis does not rise to the level of selective, voluntary disclosure articulated in Lieber and thus does not find any waiver of the asserted exemptions by the Village." (Emphasis added.)

Accordingly, the court held that the Department met its burden, by clear and convincing evidence, that the information at issue was exempt and thus was appropriately redacted. See 5 ILCS 140/11 (West 2016). By extension, the court determined that Mancini Law Group had not met its burden in showing the Department had failed to produce all of the nonexempt records under FOIA.

¶ 9 Mancini Law Group appealed only the issue of whether the Department had lost any right to withhold the unredacted accident report records due to having previously and voluntarily provided unredacted accident reports to LexisNexis. See 2020 IL App (1st) 191131-U, ¶ 2 ; see also id. ¶ 8 (noting that Mancini Law Group did "not argue that the redacted information is not exempt").

¶ 10 A majority of the panel affirmed entry of summary judgment in favor of the Department, concluding that, "based on the actual record before us, [Mancini Law Group] has not presented sufficient facts to establish that [the Department's] conduct amounts to waiver under the rule articulated in Lieber. " Id. ¶ 25.

¶ 11 Justice Hyman dissented, arguing that Mancini Law Group showed that the Department contracted "with LexisNexis to allow it to sell the unredacted accident reports to the public, without restrictions or privacy protections." Id. ¶ 32 (Hyman, J., dissenting). Thus, according to the dissent, the Department went beyond contracting with LexisNexis to simply satisfy its reporting requirement and violated Lieber . Id. ¶ 35. The dissent observed that the Illinois FOIA is patterned after the federal FOIA and that federal case law is instructive. See id. ¶ 36. The dissent cited Watkins v. United States Bureau of Customs & Border Protection , 643 F.3d 1189 (9th Cir. 2011), for the proposition that a statutorily required disclosure can still lead to "waiver" of an exemption where there is a "no-strings-attached" disclosure. 2020 IL App (1st) 191131-U, ¶ 37 (Hyman, J., dissenting) (" ‘[t]his no-strings-attached disclosure *** voids any claim to confidentiality and constitutes a waiver’ " (quoting Watkins , 643 F.3d at 1197 )). Ultimately, the dissent would reverse and remand for further proceedings, concluding that a question of material...