Court Finds FOIA Search Reasonable But Sends Request for Civil Penalties for Late Response Back to Circuit Court
An Illinois Appellate Court recently found a public body's search for records in response to a FOIA request to be reasonable and adequate in Tobias v. City of Chicago's Office of Mayor.
An independent journalist submitted a FOIA request to the Office of Mayor for text messages between the Mayor and the President of the Chicago Teachers Union for the period from the date the Mayor took office to the date the FOIA was processed and all text messages sent or received by the Mayor's Chief of Staff for two specified dates.
A City FOIA officer extended the time for response and initiated a search of texts but the City did not respond by the extended due date. Shortly thereafter, the journalist filed a lawsuit against the City claiming it violated FOIA by not responding to the FOIA request. The City produced four pages of text messages as part of its response to the lawsuit, arguing that the case was now moot, and that it could not have produced the records by the original deadline because it did not possess them at that time. The circuit court ruled in the City's favor, finding that the City did not have the records in its possession at the time the FOIA response was due since the records had not been turned over to the City until after the deadline.
On appeal, the journalist argued that the City improperly narrowed its search for records, both in scope and time-frame. The Appellate Court disagreed, finding that the City's search was both reasonable and adequate in scope and time and there was no statutory requirement that records existing after the date of the City's search be provided. However, the Court determined that the circuit court needed to reconsider the journalist's request for civil penalties against the City for failing to respond to the FOIA request in a timely matter and remanded the case back for further proceedings.
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