State ex rel. Mun. Constr. Equip. Operators' Labor Council v. City of Cleveland

Decision Date09 June 2020
Docket NumberNo. 2019-0760,2019-0760
Parties The STATE EX REL. MUNICIPAL CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT OPERATORS' LABOR COUNCIL, Appellant, v. The City of CLEVELAND et al., Appellees.
CourtOhio Supreme Court

Climaco, Wilcox, Peca & Garofoli Co., L.P.A., and Stewart D. Roll, Cleveland, for appellant.

Barbara A. Langhenry, Cleveland Director of Law, and Craig J. Morice, Assistant Director of Law, for appellees.

Per Curiam.

{¶ 1} Appellant, the Municipal Construction Equipment Operators' Labor Council (the "union"), appeals the decision of the Eighth District Court of Appeals denying as moot the union's complaint for a writ of mandamus to compel respondents, the city of Cleveland and its Civil Service Commission (collectively, "Cleveland" or "the city"), to release public records relating to a job posting. For the reasons explained below, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.

Background

{¶ 2} On August 1, 2018, the union's attorney e-mailed a public-records request to Cleveland seeking "an emailed copy of the application files of and test reports for" a list of people who had applied for an open position with the city. The following day, Cleveland acknowledged receipt of the union's request. On August 23, 2018, the union filed a complaint for a writ of mandamus to compel Cleveland to produce the requested records. The Eighth District referred the case to mediation, and a few months later, it directed the parties to certify to the court which records had been released and when and how they had been released.

{¶ 3} In its December 2018 certification, the union acknowledged that Cleveland had produced some responsive records through a September 2018 e-mail. But for several reasons, the union maintained that Cleveland had not yet fully satisfied the union's records request. Relevant to this appeal, the union asserted that Cleveland had not released any records regarding its evaluation of the applicants' work experience. With its certification, the union also filed copies of the records that Cleveland had produced.

{¶ 4} Cleveland, which filed its certification a day after the union, certified that it had fulfilled the union's request and submitted copies of all the records that it had released to the union. According to Cleveland, on August 20—three days before the union filed its mandamus complaint—Cleveland sent to the union's attorney an e-mail with a hyperlink to the responsive records. Cleveland claimed that it re-sent that link in separate e-mails on September 6 and September 13, and that on September 18, it sent another e-mail to the union's attorney with a link to an additional document. Cleveland also accused the union of making material misrepresentations in its certification, including failing to file all the records that Cleveland had released in response to the union's public-records request and failing to acknowledge that Cleveland initially produced records on August 20.

{¶ 5} In February 2019, the Eighth District determined that the union's objections to the sufficiency of Cleveland's response were not well founded and ordered the union to show cause why the case should not be considered moot. In response, the union argued that because Cleveland had not yet produced records regarding its evaluation of the applicants' work experience, the union's case was not moot.

{¶ 6} In a May 2019 decision, the Eighth District determined that the union's argument was "unpersuasive," citing over 25 pages of records from Cleveland's certification relating to its evaluation and grading of the applicants' work experience. 2019-Ohio-1889, 2019 WL 2151680, ¶ 7. The court therefore concluded that Cleveland had produced all records responsive to the union's request and denied the union's mandamus action as moot. The court further ordered each side to pay its own costs. Id. at ¶ 9. The union timely appealed, raising three propositions of law.

Analysis

{¶ 7} "Mandamus is an appropriate remedy to compel compliance with Ohio's Public Records Act," R.C. 149.43. State ex rel. Rogers v. Dept. of Rehab. & Corr. , 155 Ohio St.3d 545, 2018-Ohio-5111, 122 N.E.3d 1208, ¶ 5. To be entitled to the writ, the relator must establish a clear legal right to the requested relief and a corresponding clear legal duty on the part of the respondent to provide that relief. Id. "In general, providing the requested records to the relator in a public-records mandamus case renders the mandamus claim moot." State ex rel. Toledo Blade Co. v. Toledo-Lucas Cty. Port Auth. , 121 Ohio St.3d 537, 2009-Ohio-1767, 905 N.E.2d 1221, ¶ 14.

Proposition of law No. I: The duties under R.C. 149.43(B) to "transmit" copies and provide those copies "in accordance with the choice made" by the requester

{¶ 8} R.C. 149.43(B)(7)(a)1 provides that when a request is made for a copy of a public record, the public office "shall transmit" the copy "by United States mail or by any other means of delivery or transmission within a reasonable period of time." When the union made its records request in this case, R.C. 149.43(B)(6) allowed the union to choose whether to have Cleveland duplicate the records on paper, on the same medium upon which Cleveland kept the records, or on any other medium on which Cleveland determined that the records could reasonably be duplicated. Cleveland was then obligated to provide the copy of the records in accordance with the choice made by the union.

{¶ 9} As noted above, the union's attorney sought "an emailed copy" of the city's records responsive to the request. In response, Cleveland sent to the union a series of e-mails with instructions similar to the following: "Please log in to the Cleveland Public Records Center at the following link to retrieve the appropriate responsive documents." (Underlining sic.) The e-mails further noted that after the union accessed the records, it had 30 days in which to view and download them.

{¶ 10} In its first proposition of law, the union asserts that Cleveland failed to comply with its duties to "transmit" copies of the requested records and to provide those copies in accordance with the union's chosen form of duplication. According to the union, the definition of "transmit" does not require the requester "to do anything to receive the produced record." Therefore, by sending a link to access the documents—which the union claims required it "to sign on to the municipality's computer to access, view and download the municipality's response"—the city failed to both "transmit" the records as required by R.C. 149.43(B)(7)(a) and to provide copies to the union in accordance with the choice made by the union—i.e., by e-mail—as required by R.C. 149.43(B)(6).

{¶ 11} The union, however, has not established that Cleveland violated either duty. First, with respect to Cleveland's duty under R.C. 149.43(B)(7)(a) to "transmit" copies, the fact that the union had to click on a link in the city's e-mails to view and download the responsive records does not mean that Cleveland failed to "transmit" those records. "Transmit" is not defined in R.C. 149.43, and when "a term is not defined in [a] statute, it should be accorded its plain and ordinary meaning."

Rhodes v. New Philadelphia , 129 Ohio St.3d 304, 2011-Ohio-3279, 951 N.E.2d 782, ¶ 17. "Transmit" is commonly defined as "[t]o send or transfer (a thing) from one person or place to another" or "to communicate." Black's Law Dictionary 1728 (10th Ed.2014). Under the ordinary meaning of the word, Cleveland transmitted copies of the responsive records to the union by sending e-mails with hyperlinks that allowed the union to view and download copies of the records. As the Eighth District determined, there is little difference between clicking on a hyperlink in an e-mail and clicking on an attachment to an e-mail. 2019-Ohio-1889, 2019 WL 2151680, at ¶ 5. In the end, both methods provide the requester with the responsive records. To hold otherwise would establish an overly technical and unnecessarily narrow meaning of "transmit" in the Public Records Act, R.C. 149.43(B)(7)(a).

{¶ 12} Second, with respect to Cleveland's duty under R.C. 149.43(B)(6) to provide copies in the form chosen by the union, the union failed to raise this statutory argument in the proceedings below. If the union believed that Cleveland's e-mails did not amount to "an emailed copy" of the requested records, the union should have raised that argument in the Eighth District so that the court could decide the issue in the first instance. Regardless, absent any evidence in the record that the union attempted to clarify its choice of delivery method, we cannot conclude that Cleveland failed to transmit copies of the records "in accordance with the choice made by the person seeking the copy." See R.C. 149.43(B)(6). Again, the union requested an "emailed copy" of records and Cleveland responded by sending e-mails with hyperlinks to the responsive documents. The fact that the union had to click on a link to view those records does not mean that Cleveland failed to provide copies through e-mail as the union had requested.

{¶ 13} The union therefore has not established that Cleveland failed to comply with its duties under R.C. 149.43(B)(7)(a) or 149.43(B)(6).

Proposition of law No. II: The duty under R.C. 149.43(B) to promptly release records

{¶ 14} R.C. 149.43(B)(1) provides that public records "shall be promptly prepared and made available for inspection to any person at all reasonable times."

{¶ 15} In its second proposition of law, the union asserts that Cleveland failed to comply with R.C. 149.43(B)(1) because Cleveland produced a certain subset of records—documents relating to the city's evaluation of the applicants' work experience—128 days after the union submitted its request. According to the union, Cleveland first produced those records in its December 2018 certification to the Eighth District and the records were not released through Cleveland's September 2018 e-mails.

{¶ 16...

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