Recent Court Decisions

A circuit court in Madison County, Illinois (5th Appellate District) erred in concluding that public body followed Freedom of Information Act when it refused plaintiff permission to examine original audio tape recording of the public body’s meeting and instead only offered to make plaintiff a copy of the recording for a fee. The public body refused to allow the plaintiff to listen to the original tape for concerns of preservation of the original tape. However, the Appellate Court stated that it cannot ignore the intent of the legislature as evinced by the plain language of the Freedom of Information Act. The Act states that public bodies must make public records available for inspection and copying, unless they can avoid doing so by invoking an exception that is provided in the Act. The fact that a public body lacks the facilities for the public to listen to audiotapes is not a valid basis upon which to deny a request to inspect a tape-recorded public record.

Plaintiff requested an Excel spreadsheet of IDOT’s red light camera enforcement system. Plaintiff was doing research and writing for a national report on the effectiveness of red light camera technology. IDOT produced an Excel spreadsheet in a locked version.

FOIA language is broad enough to require IDOT to produce unlocked electronic copy of the Excel spreadsheet to allow Plaintiff to fully exercise functions of the Excel program. An award of $12,561 in reasonable attorney’s fees and costs was allowed by Section 11(i) of FOIA.

In August 2006, plaintiffs, Jerry Reppert and the Gazette Democrat, filed a complaint against defendants, Southern Illinois University (SIU) and SIU chancellor Walter V. Wendler, seeking disclosure of the employment contacts of several SIU employees. The Plaintiffs argued that the FOIA compelled disclosure of the requested documents. Defendant, SIU prevailed in the trial court; however the 4th District appellate court reversed in favor of the Gazette Democrat. The court held that the statutory definition of “public record” included the information contained in the employment contracts at issue in the case stating that contrary to defendants' (SIU) suggestion, the mere fact that personnel files are per se exempt from disclosure ... does not mean that the individual contracts are also per se exempt simply because they are kept in those files. The court declined to follow Copley Press in as much as it purported to include an employment contract as exempt from FOIA.

In this case, plaintiff alleged police brutality on a routine traffic stop. During the proceedings he requested internal investigation documents from the police. The police declined on the grounds the requested documents were part of a personnel file and exempt from FOIA (Freedom of Information Act). At trial, the Court of Appeals concluded that only "personal information" in police personnel files are completely exempt from disclosure, merely placing documents within personnel files does not automatically confer exemption.

Heinrich submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for access to administrative decisions by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) regarding licenses that were suspended or revoked by the Secretary of State (SOS). Heinrich also requested the DMV decisions within one year. This request sought documents that were not yet created, but it also sought records that did exist. The SOS denied Heinrich’s FOIA request because (1) the information contained in the documents was private, and (2) the requested documents did not exist.

Under 2-123 (f-5) of the Ill. Vehicle Code, the SOS cannot disclose or make otherwise available any personally identifying information obtained by the SOS in connection with a driver’s license, vehicle or title registration record. However, this section does not include information like vehicular accidents, driving violations, and driving status. Under section 7 of the FOIA, personal information like driver’s license numbers or home addresses are exempt from disclosure.

The appellate court concluded that the SOS should have turned over the documents with the personal information redacted. A FOIA request cannot be dismissed because part of a request is invalid, and although the documents contained private information, it could be redacted (blacking-out private information). While the trial court decided that the redacted documents were likely useless, the appellate court found that it is not the trial court’s job to decide if redacted documents are useless.

The SOS also argued that the production of the documents would be burdensome. However, the appellate court offered that to prove that a request is burdensome, the elements that must be present are: (1) compliance with the request must be unduly burdensome, (2) there must be no way to narrow the request, and (3) the burden on the public body must outweigh the public interest. The case was reversed and sent back to the lower court to review the burden of Heinrich’s request under this test and Heinrich’s continued need for the information.

Rachel Prezek, IASB Law Clerk