The plaintiff sought disclosure of certain documents related to complaints of police misconduct within the Chicago Police Department (CPD) in the form of Complaint Registers (CR) and Repeater Lists (RL). RLs were documents about officers who amassed the most misconduct complaints. CRs were related to CPD’s completed investigations into allegations of police misconduct. The issue on appeal was whether the CRs and RLs were “adjudicatory” and exempt under Section 7(1)(n) of FOIA.

On appeal the Court held that both CRs and RLs must be disclosed. They are not exempt under Section 7(1)(n) because neither were part of any adjudication. In its ruling, the Court held that it was possible that another FOIA exemption may apply to the CRs and RLs, e.g., the deliberative process exemption. However, whether the deliberative-process exemption applied would be resolved after an “in camera” (private) inspection by the trial court judge after the case was sent back to the trial court for more proceedings.

In camera inspections and FOIA exemptions: Note that the public body bears the burden of establishing that public records fall within a claimed FOIA exemption. To meet the burden, and to assist the court in making its determination, the public body must provide a detailed justification for its claimed exemption, addressing the requested documents specifically and in a manner allowing for the party that is requesting the records to rebut.

A newspaper submitted a FOIA request to the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (Department) for the number of claims made against 22 named physicians. The Department presented evidence that it did not keep such a record in the ordinary course of business and urged that it was not required to create it. The Department did not waive this argument by failing to assert it during proceedings before the Public Access Counselor. The Court, quoting from earlier decisions, found that a request to inspect or copy must reasonably identify a public record and not general data, information, or statistics. FOIA “does not compel the agency to provide answers to questions posed by the inquirer.” Here, the Department was not obligated under FOIA to answer the newspaper’s general inquiry question since this would have required the creation of a new record.

The Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) violated the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by failing to timely comply with a records request from the Uptown People’s Law Center (Uptown). IDOC turned over the requested records two weeks after Uptown filed a petition in court. FOIA requires a trial court to award attorney fees to any person who “prevails” in a proceeding to enforce FOIA. The question was whether a party can “prevail” under FOIA absent a court order. An earlier decision from the Second District Court of Appeals found that a party does not “prevail” under FOIA unless a court issues an order requiring compliance. Here, the First District found that a plaintiff may obtain attorney fees under FOIA regardless of the extent that he or she is successful in a court action. It held that court-ordered relief is not a prerequisite to an award of attorney fees under FOIA. The Court still denied Uptown an award of attorney fees. It cited an Illinois Supreme Court decision holding that an attorney representing him- or herself is not entitled to an award of attorney fees. Uptown was represented by in-house lawyers and, thus, was not required to spend additional funds specifically to pursue the FOIA request. The Court found that Uptown was not entitled to receive attorney fees that were never incurred.

Records that are in the possession of a contractor that is performing a governmental function for a public body are public records of the public body. The public body may not charge a requester any fees for the contractor to locate and retrieve such public records when the request is a non-commercial request.

[NOTE: This appeal arises from the same underlying facts where Roxana Comm. Unit School Dist. No. 1 (RCUSD) asked for and was granted an injunction against the Illinois Pollution Control Board. The injunction required the PCB to (1) stop violating the OMA and (2) hold all of its future meetings in public pending the outcome of the trial on the allegations by RCUSD that PCB violated FOIA and OMA. See Roxana CUSD #1 v. WRB Refining, LP and EPA, Pollution Control Board & Dept. of Revenue, Ill. App. 4th 120331 (2012) (available in RC&AD archives) and Roxana Community Unit School Dist. No. 1 v. Environmental Protection Agency, --- N.E.2d ---, 2013 IL App (4th) 120825 (November 14, 2013) (available in the RC&AD District Organization and Operation section).]

In this appeal, the RCUSD asked the Illinois Supreme Court to review an appellate court decision. The appellate court found that it did not have jurisdiction (authority) to hear an appeal that was filed by the RCUSD. Using a provision in the Ill. Environmental Protection Act, RCUSD appealed directly to the appellate court (as opposed to the circuit court). RCUSD appealed the Pollution Control Board’s order denying its petitions to intervene in proceedings before the Pollution Control Board. The proceedings involved whether or not to certify a facility as a “pollution control facility.” The Illinois Supreme Court agreed with the appellate court. It found that RCUSD did not qualify or assert itself under any of the categories listed in the Ill. Environmental Protection Act, which are authorized to appeal a Pollution Control Board decision directly to an appellate court.