Award of paper’s legal fees around records request upheld

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A 6-determine evaluation of authorized charges versus the Department of Corrections more than an open up information request considered to have been handled in negative religion was upheld Tuesday by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court docket.

The justices stated the $118,000 expense was justified due to the fact of how jail process officials and workforce responded to a newspaper’s ask for for information concerning a fly ash dump and probable h2o contamination.

A reporter with the Uniontown Herald-Standard questioned for the information in September 2014 to look at into worries that fly ash or h2o contamination may possibly have been sickening people today inside of the prison or in a nearby local community. Fly ash is a byproduct of burning coal to deliver electricity.

A Commonwealth Courtroom choose two years in the past established that in its original reaction to the request, Corrections did not adequately search for documents in its possession prior to denying accessibility, and therefore acted in lousy religion, justifying reimbursing the paper’s authorized costs.

Justice Sallie Mundy wrote that the court’s majority discovered it wasn’t enough for the agency’s open documents officer to just count on “representations of other individuals devoid of inquiring as to what investigation was made and with out reviewing the documents.”

A two-justice dissent reported the technical language of the Suitable-to-Know Law did not provide for legal costs as were being awarded in the circumstance, suggesting that would need a legislative modify to the statute. The other dissent concluded the Corrections Department’s search for responsive records experienced not been completed in lousy religion.

A Corrections Section spokeswoman declined remark.