BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - A judge Thursday spurned Attorney General Jeff Landry’s argument that Louisiana’s public records law only applies to state citizens, refusing to throw out a lawsuit filed against Landry by a woman who lives in Indiana.
But state district Judge William Morvant also wouldn’t heavily penalize the Republican attorney general for the lengthy time it took his office to turn over the records requested by Scarlett Martin, a researcher in Indianapolis.
Instead, Landry will have to pay Martin’s attorney fees. Her lawyer Chris Whittington estimated that would cost the attorney general’s office about $25,000.
Martin sought records in September and October 2016 about Landry’s dealings with the oil industry, travel to conferences and public appearances, vehicle purchases and contracts to hire outside law firms. She received thousands of pages in response to her requests, a number that Morvant said exceeded 16,000 documents - but only after she filed her lawsuit in March 2017.
Landry argued Martin didn’t have the right to sue because she doesn’t live in Louisiana, and asked Morvant to dismiss the entire case.
“The (state) constitution creates a right for the citizens of Louisiana, not the citizens of the world,” said Landry’s assistant attorney general Carey Jones.
Morvant disagreed, saying state legislators didn’t offer any such specification in Louisiana’s public records law. He said the only people who have detailed limits on their records access under the law are inmates.
“There is no implicit or explicit basis to say the Legislature intends that we have open public records, but you have to be a citizen of this state,” the judge said, calling that a “novel argument.”
But while Morvant wouldn’t shelve the lawsuit, he also didn’t agree that Landry’s response ran afoul of the public records law in a way that justified steep financial penalties.
In her lawsuit, Martin said she paid $250 for the requested copies but didn’t get them 175 days after filing the records requests, despite repeated assertions from the attorney general’s office that the documents were forthcoming. She asked the judge to fine him. Under Louisiana law, a judge can levy civil penalties up to $100 per day for public records violations.
Morvant said Landry’s office didn’t appear to be deliberately slowing the work to locate documents and didn’t reach the “arbitrary and capricious” standard required to levy such fines - “not even remotely close.” He cited the sweeping nature of the records requests.
“To say this was a rather broad and almost overly burdensome request would be an understatement,” Morvant said.
Several of Landry’s current and former employees testified Thursday about the work done to locate the records, saying they had to sift through more than 100,000 files across multiple office divisions.
Landry wasn’t in court Thursday. Martin did appear for the half-day hearing, but she refused to speak with reporters. She and Whittington haven’t said why Martin wanted the records.
Whittington said he was satisfied with Morvant’s decision.
“My client wanted her fees, and she got them,” he said outside the courtroom as Martin listened nearby. “Civil penalties are tough to get.”
Landry’s office suggested the records request was political, noting that Whittington was a Democratic leader several years ago. The attorney general’s office has called it a “money grab” by Whittington and described Martin as “an out-of-state political operative.”
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