Court Provides Guidance on "Unduly Burdensome" FOIA Requests
An Illinois Appellate Court recently issued a ruling in a FOIA challenge that provides public bodies with helpful guidance on what they need to show when responding to a requester that a particular request is "unduly burdensome." Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law v. Board of Education of City of Chicago.
Shriver had submitted three FOIA requests asking for records pertaining to, among other things, complaints filed with Chicago schools relating to police officer or security guard conduct and employee misconduct reports. In response to all three requests, the Board sent a notice of extension of time, and then notices that the requests were unduly burdensome under section 3(g) of FOIA and asking the requester to narrow the categorical request. When Shriver did not narrow the requests, the Board denied them as unduly burdensome. Shriver then sued, alleging that the Board willfully and intentionally failed to comply with FOIA. The circuit court dismissed the case against the Board, finding that Shriver's allegations were insufficient to show a violation of FOIA.
On appeal, the appellate court agreed that the dismissal of Shriver's case against the Board was proper. First, the appellate court determined that the Board properly extended the time to respond to the request by sending notice to Shriver. Second, the appellate court held that the Board properly denied the request as unduly burdensome after sending notice to Shriver asking it to narrow its categorical request. The appellate court noted that the Board had included a detailed explanation as to why complying with Shriver's request would be unduly burdensome, including the number of files that would have to be compiled, reviewed, and redacted and the Board's estimate of the manpower it would take to do that work. Interestingly, the second FOIA request involved 600 employee misconduct reports, and the appellate court accepted the Board's argument that it would be unduly burdensome to provide these records because it would take hundreds of hours to review and redact the reports.
This is an interesting and helpful decision for public bodies in understanding how courts will analyze requests that are denied as "unduly burdensome." One of the keys to this ruling seemed to be the Board's detailed description in the denial letter as to why compliance would be unduly burdensome.
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