Opinion ID: 2376955
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 16

Heading: Amount Per Diem

Text: ¶ 60 Justice Sanders challenges the trial court's decision to impose almost the statutory minimum penalty, predicated on a finding of AGO's good faith throughout the PRA process. Justice Sanders argues that this award is inappropriate because AGO did not act in good faith. He characterizes several aspects of AGO's behavior during this case as sharp practices and asks us to impose a higher penalty. ¶ 61 In our recent Yousoufian II opinion, we explained the trial court's discretion to set the per diem penalty as follows. The trial court must consider the entire statutory range of $5-$100. 168 Wash.2d at 466, 229 P.3d 735. There is no presumptive starting point, not even the midpoint of this range; the trial court should use its discretion in determining where to begin. Id. at 466-67, 229 P.3d 735. The mitigating factors 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; and (7) the existence of agency systems to track and retrieve public records. Id. at 467, 229 P.3d 735 (footnotes omitted). The aggravating factors 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. Id. at 467-68, 229 P.3d 735 (footnotes omitted). ¶ 62 Reviewing the trial court's penalty assessment in this case, we find nothing inconsistent with the Yousoufian II test. The trial court did not presume any starting point, but considered the full statutory range. It determined that AGO acted in good faith and did not credit any of Justice Sanders's arguments to the contrary. However, the trial court noted that, despite proceeding in good faith, AGO had not strictly complied with the PRA's brief explanation requirement, which aggravated the penalty. See id. at 467, 229 P.3d 735 (aggravating factor 3). Thus, the trial court did not expressly examine all of the Yousoufian II factorswe had not yet announced them. But, clairvoyance is not a necessary qualification for the bench. In all, we find no abuse of discretion in the trial court's selection of $8 per day per record as the appropriate penalty amount.