AG’s office pays $265K to settle suit

Failure to turn over documents in IPRA request led to action

The state Attorney General’s Office has settled a long-standing lawsuit with an animal welfare activist for $265,000.

The settlement, reached last month, settles claims that the AG’s Office failed to turn over hundreds of emails to animal rights activist Marcy Britton in response to a 2009 Inspection of Public Records Act request. The settlement covers statutory damages and attorney fees.

“As State Auditor, I assisted Ms. Britton by locating the original records, and as Attorney General, I am glad to have finally resolved this important lawsuit in the interest of transparency,” Attorney General Hector Balderas said in a statement.

John Boyd, Britton’s attorney, said they were pleased with the settlement, calling the behavior of the AG’s office under former attorney general Gary King “disappointing.” He noted that the AG’s office is tasked with ensuring that public agencies are following IPRA, adding that King made a “big show” of it.

“It was not a pretty picture for them to be so evasive,” he said.

In June of 2009, Britton requested records related to the AG’s Animal Cruelty Task Force because she was concerned the group’s actions were resulting in the euthanizing of animals. Specifically, Britton asked for communications between people associated with the task force from the previous two years.

Eventually, Britton received hundreds of

records from the AG’s Office, although she had been led to believe that far more were available.

According to the Court of Appeals, in January 2012, Britton received a response to a separate IPRA request filed with the State Auditor’s Office seeking records it maintained related to the AG’s Office task force.

She noticed that the state auditor provided records that were within the scope of her June 2009 request to the AG, according to the Appeals Court order.

The AG’s Office later agreed to run a new search, which turned up at least 350 emails responsive to Britton’s request that had not yet been produced.

In September 2018, the Court of Appeals ruled that public agencies can be ordered to pay up to $100 per day for providing incomplete or inadequate responses to requests filed under the state’s IPRA laws.

“This is a landmark case, shining light on enforcement of IPRA,” Melanie Majors, executive director of the Foundation for Open Government, said. “It’s a major step in showing that our state’s government is open, transparent and accessible.”