Judge rules city violated ‘prompt’ statute in Public Records Act

In a significant victory for open records proponents across the state, Metro Nashville has lost a lawsuit over the amount of time its police department takes to respond to and fulfill open records requests.

The Tennessee Public Records Act states, “The custodian of a public record or the custodian’s designee shall promptly make available for inspection any public record not specifically exempt from disclosure. In the event it is not practicable for the record to be promptly available for inspection, the custodian shall, within seven (7) business days:

Many governing bodies take that to mean an agency has seven days to respond, period, and will not even respond sooner, much less provide even readily available documents. This is the case with the Metro Nashville Police Department, which in 2015 stopped providing access to accident reports, even though they were usually in the computers, redacted, after 72 hours. Worse, it began limiting responses to requests for the reports to three at a time, and sometimes simply never filling the requests at all.

So Bradley Jetmore sued. And on Aug. 19, Judge Robert E. Lee Davies ruled in his favor, issuing an order that MNPD provide for inspection or duplication all accident reports within 72 hours of the end of the shift of the officer who filed the report.

“Metro contends it is not practical for them to be bound by Order from this Court establishing a definition of ‘prompt’ that is specific to Metro. Instead, Metro argues as long as it complies with the second requirement in the statute after the expiration of seven days it is still in compliance. The Court does not agree with this interpretation,” Davies wrote. “In this case, allowing Metro seven days to produce these record for inspection does not qualify as ‘prompt’ under the Act. Thus, Metro has failed to comply with the promptness requirement for producing these accident reports for inspection.”

The promptness provision was added to the law in 2008, and the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government reports this is likely the first legal challenge to it.

The provision about providing public records promptly was added to the law in 2008 after recommendations from the Joint Study Committee on Open Government.

“As far as I know, this is the first time in Tennessee anyone has challenged the ‘promptness’ for producing records,” said Doug Pierce, attorney for the requesters. “(The city) took it upon themselves to mean they didn’t have to do anything for seven days.”

Pierce also is a member of Tennessee Coalition for Open Government’s Board of Directors. The claim of getting to delay records for seven days no matter what they are is a position commonly taken by public records custodians across the state, despite the fact that it’s contrary to the law. To enforce the law, a requester has to file a lawsuit.

Metro has filed a notice of appeal, but according to sources, Mayor Megan Barry’s office is as yet undecided whether to push forward with an actual appeal.