Sargent v. Seattle Police Deparment
Sargent v. Seattle Police Deparment
Opinion of the Court
¶1 This case is brought under the Public Records Act (PRA), chapter 42.56 RCW. The chief issue is whether a request for public records has indefinite effect, such that after an agency has responded to a request, it must monitor the status of all records within the request and disclose any that later become subject to disclosure. We must also decide whether the categorical exemption for records of an open and active law enforcement investigation terminated at the point of the last witness interview, whether the open and active investigation exemption applies to internal police disciplinary records, whether certain redactions to the disclosures made here were justified, and what penalties and fees are appropriate.
¶2 We hold that there is no standing request under the PRA. We also hold the statutory exemption for records of an open and active law enforcement investigation does not end with the final witness interview; the open and active exemption applies to police disciplinary investigation records; certain redactions from the records were not justified; the statutory maximum penalty is not appropriate where there is no showing of gross negligence, bad faith, or other improper conduct; and Evan Sargent’s fees were improperly limited.
BACKGROUND
¶4 On July 28, 2009, Evan Sargent had an altercation with off-duty Seattle Police Department (SPD) Officer Donald Waters. Sargent was arrested for assault and released pending charges.
¶5 On July 30, Detective Nathan Janes submitted the case to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office (KCPA) for rush filing. KCPA declined to proceed and returned the case for further investigation.
¶6 On August 31 and September 1, 2009, Sargent filed requests under the PRA, seeking documents related to the incident. In letters dated September 4 and 9, SPD denied Sargent’s requests on grounds that under RCW 42.56-.240(1), the requested documents were exempt from disclosure as records of an open and active law enforcement investigation. SPD suggested Sargent resubmit his request in six to eight weeks.
¶7 Sargent challenged the denial. In response, SPD provided the name and badge number of Officer Waters but otherwise continued to deny Sargent’s request. Sargent did not file suit.
¶8 On October 22, 2009, Sargent submitted a complaint to SPD’s Office of Professional Accountability (OPA), which began a disciplinary investigation of Officer Waters.
¶9 Meanwhile, Detective Janes continued to investigate the allegations against Sargent. Janes conducted his last witness interview on October 23,2009. On either November 17, 2009 or January 13, 2010 (the record is unclear), Janes referred the case to the Seattle city attorney for prosecution. On January 20, 2010, the city attorney declined to file charges. SPD notified Sargent of this determination.
¶10 On February 5,2010, Sargent resubmitted and clarified his requests for information about the July incident,
¶11 On March 10, SPD provided the 911 tapes. It also provided the investigative file and the CAD log, both with names of witnesses redacted for their safety (citing RCW 42.56.240(2)). SPD withheld the disciplinary file under the open and active investigation exemption and suggested Sargent resubmit his request in four to six weeks, and stated it needed additional time to do research before responding to his request for all written communications regarding the event or the investigation thereof. On April 5, SPD provided written communications and additional documents from the investigative file, but redacted jail records (citing RCW 70.48.100),
¶12 On April 30, 2010, ORA determined that Sargent’s complaint against Waters was not sustained. OPA informed Sargent the investigation was closed. Sargent did not submit a new request for the records.
¶13 Sargent filed a complaint in King County Superior Court, alleging violation of the PRA. After a show cause
DISCUSSION
¶14 The PRA is a broad mandate for access to records that reveal the workings of government. Generally, public records are available for inspection and copying by anyone who wants to see them for any reason.
Standing PRA Requests
¶16 The controlling issue is whether a request for public records remains indefinitely “standing,” such that even after an agency has properly responded, the agency must search out and disclose additional records if the basis for a claimed exemption ceases to apply.
¶17 Sargent contends his first requests on August 31 and September 1 remained pending throughout. The trial court agreed. In its oral decision, the trial court discussed “whose burden it is to renew a public records request”:
It’s not the burden of the person asking for a disclosure to continue to request disclosure at frequent intervals. Once a person has asked that specific items be turned over to them, then it’s the City’s burden to determine when, if ever, it can do that.[7 ]
¶18 The statute, however, does not say that. The purpose of the PRA is to provide full public access to existing, nonexempt records.
¶19 As the Washington State Bar Association’s Public Records Act Deskbook comment states, “The Public Records Act does not provide for ‘continuing’ or ‘standing’ requests.”
¶20 This is a sensible, bright-line rule. Agencies are required to respond to requests in a timely fashion by disclosing all nonexempt documents. Nothing in the language or history of the statute indicates the legislature intended to impose on agencies an endless monitoring of old requests, or to require updated responses indefinitely to people who may have long since lost interest.
¶21 Further, the statute requires that public records be made available for “inspection and copying.”
¶22 SPD responded to each of Sargent’s requests as it came in. Sargent was able to appeal those responses. When the status of the records changed, he was notified and had the opportunity to refresh his request. He did so, at least for the investigation file, and the records were, with minor exceptions, properly disclosed.
¶23 The PRA does not provide for standing records requests. An agency is not required to monitor whether newly created or newly nonexempt documents fall within a request to which it has already responded. Because this error affected most of the rulings made below, we reverse and remand for further proceedings as discussed below.
Exemption for Open and Active Law Enforcement Investigations
¶24 Under RCW 42.56.240, public records are exempt from disclosure when their production would interfere with privacy or with effective law enforcement:
The following investigative, law enforcement, and crime victim information is exempt from public inspection and copying under this chapter:
(1) Specific intelligence information and specific investigative records compiled by investigative, law enforcement, and penology agencies, and state agencies vested with the responsibility to discipline members of any profession, the nondisclosure of which is essential to effective law enforcement or for the protection of any person’s right to privacy.[14 ]
As established in Newman v. King County, this exemption applies categorically to all records of open and active police investigations.
¶25 The categorical exemption applies if the investigation is leading toward “an enforcement proceeding.”
¶26 The first question is when the categorical exemption ceased or was interrupted. In Cowles Publishing Co. v. Spokane Police Department, the court clarified that the categorical exemption ends when police refer a case to a prosecuting agency: “[Wlhere the suspect has been arrested and the matter referred to the prosecutor, any potential danger to effective law enforcement is not such as to warrant categorical nondisclosure.”
¶27 Here, the case was twice referred to a prosecutor. First, two days after the incident, it was referred to the KCPA for rush filing. King County declined to file and
¶28 Sargent contends, and the trial court agreed, that when the case was sent to the KCPA in late July, the records submitted lost their categorical exemption. This would be true had nothing else occurred, but it ignores the subsequent events: before Sargent filed his first records request, the KCPA had returned the file for further work and SPD had resumed its investigation.
¶29 Newman and Spokane Police both rest on the premise that disclosure of records during an open investigation is a judgment best left to law enforcement.
¶30 Eventually, the file was referred to the city attorney, at which point the categorical exemption for open investigations ceased under Spokane Police.
¶31 The trial court ruled, however, that the investigation ceased to be open and active, and the exemption ceased to apply, as of the date of the last witness interview, October 23. From that date forward, the court imposed the maximum penalty of $100 per day for nondisclosure.
¶33 This approach also does not conform to Newman, which instructs that documents in an open and active law enforcement investigation are not subject to disclosure when the investigation is leading toward an enforcement proceeding,
¶34 The categorical exemption expired when the case was referred to the city attorney for prosecution. SPD did not violate the PRA or act in bad faith by declining disclosure before that date.
¶35 We turn now to the particular exemptions claimed in SPD’s response to the only request made by Sargent after the investigation closed, the February 5 request. The PRA requires that the agency demonstrate that a claimed exemption applies to the record withheld.
¶36 Nondisclosure of Witness Identities. In disclosing the investigative file, SPD redacted the names of witnesses, citing the exemption for the protection of witnesses and victims of a crime in RCW 42.56.240(2):
Information revealing the identity of persons who are witnesses to or victims of crime or who file complaints with investigative, law enforcement, or penology agencies, other than the commission, if disclosure would endanger any person’s life, physical safety, or property. If at the time a complaint is filed the complainant, victim, or witness indicates a desire for disclosure or nondisclosure, such desire shall govern.
The trial court rejected this exemption, ruling that absent a specific request from a witness for nondisclosure of personal information, the agency must make an affirmative showing that disclosure entails a potential threat to safety or property, which SPD failed to do.
¶37 We agree. SPD made no showing that disclosure of identifying information would “endanger any person’s life, physical safety, or property.”
¶38 SPD also contends the identifying information falls within the categorical exemption as essential to effective
¶39 We do not agree there is a categorical exemption, but there is case law supporting SPD’s argument.
¶40 Both Cowles Publishing Co. v. State Patrol
“If an agency’s investigatory files were obtainable without limitation after the investigation was concluded... [t]he names of people who volunteered the information that had prompted the investigation initially or who contributed information during the course of the investigation would be disclosed. The possibility of such disclosure would tend severely to limit the agencies’ possibilities for investigation and enforcement of the law since these agencies rely, to a large extent, on voluntary cooperation and on information from informants.”[32 ]
The State Patrol court held:
[T]he confidentiality of the names of persons reflected on the records of internal investigations is necessary to effective law enforcement. We hold that where internal investigation files have already been released, the names of the complainants,*18 witnesses and officers involved are exempt from disclosure under RCW 42.17.310(l)(d).[33 ]
¶41 But the main State Patrol opinion was signed by only four justices. Two others concurred solely on grounds the trial court made unchallenged findings that nondisclosure was essential to effective law enforcement.
¶42 In Koenig, Division Two of this court addressed a similar argument under RCW 42.56.240(1) regarding disclosure of a victim impact statement.
¶43 We conclude there is no clear categorical exemption for witness identification under the effective law enforcement prong of RCW 42.56.240(1). The question thus turns upon the adequacy of the agency’s showing that the exemption applies in the particular case.
¶44 Reasons for Refusal To File Charges. SPD asserted the effective law enforcement prong of RCW 42.56.240(1) for its redaction of information that allegedly revealed the reasons the city attorney declined to file charges against Sargent and an entry from Janes’ log. SPD contends disclosure of such information “essentially would provide a roadmap to potential criminals describing how to avoid prosecution.”
¶45 First, SPD redacted an entry from Janes’ investigation log reflecting his opinion that disclosure of information to Sargent before he had made a statement to police would “undermine! ] the suspect’s credibility, for if he has all of the information known to law enforcement, he can tailor his statement to match the known facts.”
¶46 Second, SPD withheld the “filing decline memo” from the city attorney, which notes, “Both victim and defendant appeared to be a bit out of line. A reasonable trier of fact, based on all the evidence and reasonably foreseeable defenses (self-defense) will [not] be likely to find the def [endant] guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”
¶47 We agree with the trial court that SPD failed to justify these nondisclosures under RCW 42.56.240(1).
¶48 Sargent’s Jail Records and Nonconviction Criminal History. The PRA mandates that agencies disclose requested information unless it falls under a PRA exemption or is exempt under another statute.
¶49 SPD also withheld Sargent’s nonconviction criminal history, relying on the privacy prong of RCW 42.56.240(1) and on the Washington State Criminal Records Privacy Act (CRPA), chapter 10.97 RCW. The court ordered disclosure but made no findings as to the claimed exemptions.
¶50 The CRPA permits the subject of a criminal record to inspect that record in person at the agency but prohibits
Metadata
¶51 Sargent requested “[a]ll written or recorded communications (including electronic communications such as email or text messages) by or concerning Officer Donald Waters ... or Detective Nathan Janes, regarding Evan Sargent and/or the investigation of [the July 28, 2009 incident] ,”
Disclosure of Disciplinary Investigative Records
152 On cross appeal, Sargent assigns error to the court’s refusal to require disclosure of the disciplinary investigative files.
¶53 SPD is correct. The Newman court’s reasoning applies equally to disciplinary investigations: “The ongoing nature of the investigation naturally provides no basis to decide what is important____The determination of sensitive or nonsensitive documents often cannot be made until the case has been solved.”
¶54 As discussed above, the PRA does not provide for standing requests.
PRA Violation Penalties
155 The PRA requires imposition of per diem penalties for violations and provides that “it shall be within the discretion of the court to award such person an amount not less than five dollars and not to exceed one-hundred dollars
¶56 In Yousoufian v. Office of Ron Sims, King County Executive, the court set forth guidelines for determining an appropriate penalty for a PRA violation.
¶57 The Supreme Court held the penalty was not proportionate to the misconduct, and set forth 16 nonmandatory and somewhat overlapping guidelines for PRA penalty assessments:
[MJitigating factors that may serve to decrease the penalty are (1) a lack of clarity in the PRA request; (2) the agency’s prompt response or legitimate follow-up inquiry for clarification; (3) the agency’s good faith, honest, timely, and strict compliance with all PRA procedural requirements and exceptions; (4) proper training and supervision of the agency’s personnel; (5) the reasonableness of any explanation for noncompliance by the agency; (6) the helpfulness of the agency to the requestor;*24 and (7) the existence of agency systems to track and retrieve public records.
Conversely, aggravating factors that may support increasing the penalty are (1) a delayed response by the agency, especially in circumstances making time of the essence; (2) lack of strict compliance by the agency with all the PRA procedural requirements and exceptions; (3) lack of proper training and supervision of the agency’s personnel; (4) unreasonableness of any explanation for noncompliance by the agency; (5) negligent, reckless, wanton, bad faith, or intentional noncompliance with the PRA by the agency; (6) agency dishonesty; (7) the public importance of the issue to which the request is related, where the importance was foreseeable to the agency; (8) any actual personal economic loss to the requestor resulting from the agency’s misconduct, where the loss was foreseeable to the agency; and (9) a penalty amount necessary to deter future misconduct by the agency considering the size of the agency and the facts of the case.[58 ]
The Yousoufian court held the appropriate penalty for the county’s gross negligence was $45 per day.
¶58 By comparison, the penalty assessment against SPD is completely disproportionate. SPD timely responded to Sargent’s requests, properly withheld the criminal investigative records (and suggested timing for a “refresher” request), disclosed the records within two months when they were not exempt, properly withheld the disciplinary investigation file, and kept Sargent informed of the status of the criminal and disciplinary investigations. SPD violated the PRA only insofar as it failed to provide Sargent’s jail records and failed to justify certain exemptions. And SPD’s reliance upon a categorical exemption for witness identification was hardly an unreasonable reading of the case law. Finally, the trial court’s finding of bad faith is not
¶59 There was no basis for the maximum penalty.
Attorney Fees
¶60 A party who prevails against an agency in PRA litigation is entitled to all costs, including reasonable attorney fees, incurred in connection with such legal action.
¶61 SPD contends the court awarded fees at an excessive hourly rate and for an unreasonable number of hours. But the court applied the lodestar method, which is the accepted approach to awarding legal fees in PRA cases,
¶62 For his part, Sargent contends the court abused its discretion by declining to award fees incurred after the August 20, 2010 hearing. We agree. A prevailing plaintiff in a PRA action is entitled to “all costs . . . incurred in connection with such legal action.”
¶63 Where PRA litigation involves several disputed issues, however, the court should award fees only for work on successful issues.
¶64 Sargent requests fees on appeal under RAP 18.1 and RCW 42.56.550(4). We award fees to the extent Sargent has prevailed in this appeal; the amount shall be determined by the trial court on remand.
CONCLUSION
¶65 We affirm the trial court’s refusal to require disclosure of the disciplinary investigation files. We also affirm the court’s rulings that the safety and effective law enforcement exemptions did not justify nondisclosure of witness identifications, and the effective law enforcement exemption did not justify redaction of the reasons for not filing charges or the entry in Janes’ log concerning disclosure of records prior to conducting an interview with Sargent.
¶66 The trial court erred in holding that Sargent’s initial request remained pending after SPD formally responded, in holding the investigative file submitted to the city attorney was subject to disclosure in response to a request made after the investigation had resumed, in holding the open investigations exemption ceased on the date of the last witness interview, in requiring SPD to release Sargent’s jail records, and in its assessment of penalties. The court also erred in limiting Sargent’s fees to those incurred as of the date of the hearing but not thereafter. We reverse these rulings.
Reconsideration denied April 17, 2012.
Review granted at 175 Wn.2d 1001 (2012).
SPD withheld nonconviction criminal history, later citing the Washington State Criminal Records Privacy Act, chapter 10.97 RCW.
Clerk’s Papers at 441.
RCW 42.56.100; see also Wash. State Bar Ass’n, Public Records Act Deskbook: Washington’s Public Disclosure and Open Public Meetings Laws § 2.2, at 2-3, 2-4 (2006).
ROW 42.56.030; Newman v. King County, 133 Wn.2d 565, 571, 947 P.2d 712 (1997).
ROW 42.56.550(1); Koenig v. City of Des Moines, 158 Wn.2d 173, 180, 142 P.3d 162 (2006).
RCW 42.56.550(3); Soter v. Cowles Publ’g Co., 162 Wn.2d 716, 731, 174 P.3d 60 (2007).
Report of Proceedings (RP) (Aug. 20, 2010) at 28-29.
Am. Civil Liberties Union of Wash. v. Blaine Sch. Dist. No. 503, 86 Wn. App. 688, 695, 937 P.2d 1176 (1997).
According to the responsible official, SPD receives over 3,000 PEA requests per year. The trial court remarked that standing requests in the law enforcement context would not pose an unreasonable burden because the onus would fall not on the city attorney but on the detectives in each case. This suggestion overlooks several practical realities, including personnel changes, the passage of time, and the fact that the request log is unlikely to be maintained in the squad room.
Wash. State Bar Ass’n, Public Records Act Deskbook: Washington’s Public Disclosure and Open Public Meetings Laws § 5.3(3)(d) cmt. at 5-31 (2006).
WAC 44-14-04004(4)(a). The model rules were promulgated at the request of the legislature to provide guidance to agencies and the public. See ROW 42.56.570.
ROW 42.56.070.
See ROW 42.56.120.
(Emphasis added.)
133 Wn.2d 565, 574-75, 947 P.2d 712 (1997).
Id. at 569.
Id. at 575.
Id. at 574.
Id. at 573.
139 Wn.2d 472, 479, 987 P.2d 620 (1999).
Id. at 479-80; see also Seattle Times Co. v. Serko, 170 Wn.2d 581, 593-94, 243 P.3d 919 (2010).
Newman, 133 Wn.2d at 573-74; Spokane Police, 139 Wn.2d at 477.
Newman, 133 Wn.2d at 574. The parties do not brief, and we do not address, what procedure should obtain where a records request is filed while the case is still in the hands of the prosecutor, who thereafter returns the file for further investigation.
Id. at 575; see also Seattle Times, 170 Wn.2d at 593.
Spokane Police, 139 Wn.2d at 479.
RCW 42.56.070(1) (justification for redactions of personal information “shall be explained fully in writing”), .210(3) (refusal “shall include a statement of the specific exemption authorizing the withholding of the record (or part) and a brief explanation of how the exemption applies to the record withheld”); see also Sanders v. State, 169 Wn.2d 827, 845-46, 240 P.3d 120 (2010).
See RCW 42.56.550(1).
109 Wn.2d 712, 748 P.2d 597 (1988) (plurality opinion).
155 Wn. App. 398, 407-11, 229 P.3d 910 (2010), review granted, 170 Wn.2d 1020, 245 P.3d 774 (2011).
State Patrol, 109 Wn.2d at 733.
Id. at 732-33 (quoting Aspin v. Dep’t of Def., 160 U.S. App. D.C. 231, 491 F.2d 24 (1973)).
Id. at 733.
Id. at 734 (Andersen, J., concurring).
Id. at 736 (Dolliver, J., dissenting).
Koenig, 155 Wn. App. at 404-12.
Whether nondisclosure is essential to effective law enforcement is a question of fact. Id. at 407.
Br. of Appellant at 30.
Clerk’s Papers at 499.
Id. at 571.
It appears there was no assertion of attorney-client privilege below, and we do not speculate upon it. On appeal, SPD asserts the attorney work product exemption under RCW 42.56.290. See Soter, 162 Wn.2d at 731; Limstrom v. Ladenburg, 136 Wn.2d 595, 611, 963 P.2d 869 (1998). A contention not advanced below cannot be urged for the first time on appeal. Smith v. Shannon, 100 Wn.2d 26, 37, 666 P.2d 351 (1983). A thorough search of the record fails to reveal that SPD asserted the attorney work product exemption below. We thus do not address it.
RCW 42.56.070(1).
RCW 70.48.100(2)(d).
The court reasoned that SPD had not cited law that “forbids the release of booking information to the very person who was booked.” RP (Aug. 10,2010) at 27.
RCW 10.97.080.
Clerk’s Papers at 125.
170 Wn.2d 138, 151-52, 240 P.3d 1149 (2010).
Sargent asserts the court’s written order, which clearly refused to order SPD to produce unredacted copies of disciplinary records, should be “clarified” to reflect
Newman, 133 Wn.2d at 574.
We do not address what disclosure would have been called for had a request been submitted after the investigation closed. A recent decision of our Supreme Court rejected the personal privacy exemption in this context except as to the officer’s name, but did not address the essential to effective law enforcement exemption. See Bainbridge Island Police Guild v. City of Puyallup, 172 Wn.2d 398, 259 P.3d 190 (2011).
Former RCW 42.56.550(4) (2005). An award of statutory penalties and fees under the PRA is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Yousoufian v. Office of Ron Sims, King County Exec., 168 Wn.2d 444, 458, 229 P.3d 735 (2010). An abuse of discretion is a manifestly unreasonable decision or one based on untenable grounds or for untenable reasons. Id.
168 Wn.2d 444, 459-63, 229 P.3d 735 (2010).
Id. at 457-58. The first penalty imposed was $5 per day. After the first appeal, it was increased to $15 per day.
Id. at 468 (“[T]he factors . . . are offered only as guidance, may not apply equally or at all in every case, and are not an exclusive list of appropriate considerations. . . . These factors should not infringe upon the considerable discretion of trial courts to determine PRA penalties.”).
Id. at 467-68 (footnotes omitted).
Id. at 468-69. There is no indication the trial court applied the Yousoufian factors here.
SPD does not assign error to the finding of bad faith but challenges its legal basis. Because we agree with SPD on the legal context, we reject the finding for purposes of the penalty. The trial court also implied bad faith with respect to SPD’s handling of Sargent’s request after the case was referred to the city attorney. There is nothing in the record of proceedings or clerk’s papers to support this conclusion.
ROW 42.56.550(4).
Kitsap County Prosecuting Attorney’s Guild v. Kitsap County, 156 Wn. App. 110, 120, 231 P.3d 219 (2010).
West v. Port of Olympia, 146 Wn. App. 108, 122, 192 P.3d 926 (2008) (citing Mahler v. Szucs, 135 Wn.2d 398, 433, 957 P.2d 632 (1998)). The court determines the number of hours reasonably expended in the litigation and multiplies it by the reasonable hourly rate of compensation. Id.
RCW 42.56.550(4) (emphasis added).
RCW 42.56.030.
Sanders, 169 Wn.2d at 868.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Evan Sargent v. The Seattle Police Department
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- Published