Opinion ID: 2376955
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 17

Heading: Inclusion of Adjudication Period in Penalty Calculation

Text: ¶ 63 AGO attempted to persuade the trial court that it should omit from the penalty calculation the number of days the court took to decide the case. The trial court believed that it had no discretion to do so, relying on Yousoufian I, 152 Wash.2d at 438, 98 P.3d 463. CP at 1847. AGO asks us to reverse this holding because it forces an agency to run[] the risk of being severely penalized for delays that are not of its making. Resp't Br. at 47. ¶ 64 In Yousoufian I, the plaintiff delayed suing for 647 days but ultimately prevailed on the issue of production. 152 Wash.2d at 426-28, 98 P.3d 463. The trial court held that 120 days was the longest the plaintiff should reasonably have delayed, and so reduced the number of days for purposes of calculating the penalty by 527 days (647 minus 120). Id. The Court of Appeals upheld the calculation under an abuse of discretion standard. Id. at 428-29, 98 P.3d 463. We reversed, holding that the standard of review was de novo. Id. at 436-38, 98 P.3d 463. We read the PRA to unambiguously provide that the penalty must be for each day the record was wrongfully withheld. Id. The only limits on the plaintiff's ability to collect penalties after delay are the statute of limitations and, perhaps, laches. Id. ¶ 65 AGO tries to distinguish Yousoufian I because, in that case, the delay was attributable to the plaintiff and not to the court. This misses the point. Regardless of who delayed in Yousoufian I, the agency was not the party at fault. Consistent with Yousoufian I, we should hold that the PRA requires the agency to pay a penalty for each day the requester is unable to inspect or copy a nonexempt record, regardless of whether the agency created the delay. This rule may seem harsh, but it is the unambiguous meaning of the statute. See id. at 437, 98 P.3d 463 (`If the statute's meaning is plain on its face, then courts must give effect to its plain meaning as an expression of what the Legislature intended.' (quoting State v. J.M., 144 Wash.2d 472, 480, 28 P.3d 720 (2001))). The trial court did not abuse its discretion on this point.