Opinion ID: 2828983
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The City’s Request for a Decision from the Attorney General Was Untimely.

Text: On May 16, 2002, Dallas received Hill’s request for all information pertaining to the City of Dallas Assessment Center Process for uniform positions of the Dallas Fire and Police Departments. Four business days later, the City requested from Hill a clarification of his broad request. The City received Hill’s clarification four business days after its request. The City waited another nine business days thereafter, until June 10, to request an attorney general opinion. Thus, the City did not request a decision from the Attorney General until seventeen business days (twenty-five calendar days) after it received Hill’s original request. If the four business-day period during which the City sought clarification is excluded, the City’s request to the Attorney General was not sent until thirteen business days after receiving Hill’s original May 16 request. Section 552.301(b) expressly starts the clock ticking for the ten business-day deadline on the date the City “receives” the written request. Tex. Gov’t Code § 552.301(b). Section 552.222(b) allows a governmental body to seek clarification upon receipt of an unclear or overbroad request for information, but it does not address how a clarification affects the ten-day deadline. Id . § 552.222( b) ; see also Tex. Att’y Gen. ORD-663, 3 (1999) (“[W] hile the PIA expressly permits a governmental body to seek clarification and narrowing of a request, it is silent as to the effect of such inquiry on the PIA’s deadline for requesting a decision.”). The City claims its request was timely because, upon receipt of Hill’s clarification, it was treated as a new request, and the ten-day period reset. The Attorney General asserts, and the court of appeals reasoned, that the City’s request was untimely because the time period was only tolled for the four business days between the City’s request for Hill’s written clarification and its receipt of that clarification. The custom and practice in the Office of the Attorney General over the years have provided a consistent and rational manner for handling clarification requests. The Office of the Attorney General issues thousands of PIA rulings per year. In 2007 alone it issued 17,000 rulings. Between 2001 and 2007, the Attorney General issued approximately 4,515 rulings regarding claims of attorney-client privilege. Brief of Respondent-Attorney General at 29, 31, City of Dallas v. Greg Abbott, Attorney General of Tex. , No. 07-0931 (Tex. May 9, 2009). Attorney general opinions, which this Court has recognized as persuasive, provide that a governmental entity’s good faith attempt to clarify or narrow a request tolls the time period for the information requested; conversely a request for new information that is included in a clarification starts the period anew only for that new information. See Holmes v. Morales , 924 S.W.2d 920, 924 (Tex. 1996) (explaining that attorney general opinions are “persuasive, but not controlling” authority); Doe v. Tarrant’ County Dist. Attorney’s Office , 269 S.W.3d 147, 152 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2008, no pet.) (giving special “due consideration” to attorney general decisions involving public information because the Legislature requires the Attorney General to issue written opinions advising governmental entities); Tex. Att’y Gen. ORD-663; Tex. Att’y Gen. LA-12245 (2009) (finding that a clarification was not a new request resetting the time period); Tex. Att’y Gen. LA-9346 (2007) (finding a request untimely notwithstanding the agency’s request for clarification from the requestor); Tex. Att’y Gen. LA-2258, 1-2 (2003) (finding that the tolling from clarification made request timely). If the request is simply too broad and the governmental entity seeks to narrow it, the governmental body does not get a new ten-day period for the information included in the original request. For that information, the clock is tolled the period between the time the governmental body requests clarification and the time the governmental body receives the clarification response. Id. The Attorney General has recognized that governmental bodies that genuinely need clarification of a request should not be threatened with loss of their statutory time to seek an attorney general opinion on an exception from disclosure. Tex. Att’y Gen. ORD-663 at 5. It stands to reason that clarification and narrowing, sought in good faith, should be encouraged. See id. For the last decade, the opportunity for reasonable clarification has been incorporated in the Attorney General’s application of tolling principles to requests for clarification by governmental entities. See id. The public entity thereby gains more time to gather the alleged privileged information during the clarification period but must request the attorney general decision within ten business days plus the period during which the clock is tolled for a good faith clarification request. See id. Hill’s clarification limited the request to the year 2000 and to the positions of Dallas Fire Rescue Fire Lieutenant and Captain. It also requests a list of information: “[a] ny written documents on ‘how Assessment Process was to be administered’ for the above positions and time frame”; “[j]ob analysis[] for the positions of Fire Lieutenant and Fire Captain and date of each analysis”; “[a] ny contract between Booth and the City of Dallas/Civil Service to conduct the Assessment Center for the Dallas Fire department positions Fire Lieutenant and Fire Captain”; and “[a]n explanation on the ‘mirroring’ of percentages between Fire Prevention and Fire Operations testing for the same period.” This information would be subsumed by his original request for information pertaining to the City of Dallas ‘Assessment Center Process’ for uniform positions of the Dallas Fire and Police Departments. Indeed, the City does not contend that the three documents it seeks to withhold, in Exhibits F and G, were not included in the original request from Hill. 3 Accordingly, the ten business-day period should be tolled for the intervening time between the government’s clarification request and Hill’s response. Thus, excluding the four business days during which the time period was tolled, the City’s request for a decision from the Office of the Attorney General was not sent until the thirteenth business day after Hill’s May 16 request. The City’s request was not timely. Asserted exceptions to disclosure of public information had been handled in this manner for years when the City received Hill’s request. See Tex. Att’y Gen. ORD-663 (1999). The City was charged with knowledge of the law yet failed to follow it. See Tex Gov’t Code § 552.012 (mandating training of public information officers); Osterberg v. Peca , 12 S.W.3d 31, 38 (Tex. 2000) (holding that ignorance of the law is not an excuse for violation of a statute). Tolling the ten-day period during the clarification process for information in the original request furthers the PIA’s objective of promptly providing, “without delay,” the public with information from its servants—governmental entities. See Tex. Gov’t Code § 552.221(a). Resetting the time period in this circumstance delays disclosure of public information. It imposes no additional incentive to timely produce information sought within the original request that is also sought in the clarification. See Indus. Found. of the S. v. Tex. Indus. Accident Bd. , 540 S.W.2d 668, 687 (Tex. 1976) (holding that “the Act does not allow either the custodian of records or a court to consider the cost or method of supplying requested information in determining whether such information should be disclosed”). Moreover, tolling the time period for this information that was included in the original request is the established method for handling clarifications under the PIA. See Tex. Att’y Gen. ORD-663 at 1. The Court’s approach resets the clock for all information in the original request each time a clarification is sought, and it is not justified where that clarification only narrows the scope of the original request for the benefit of the governmental entity. See Tex. Att’y Gen. LA-12245 (discussing multiple clarification requests). Surely, where new information is sought in a clarification, the entity should receive ten business days to seek an attorney general opinion. But it is inconsistent with the language and purpose of the PIA to extend the statutory deadline ten business days beyond the time already allotted for public information requested initially. The Court’s holding ignores the date of receipt of the original request and, contrary to the statutory mandate, inserts an unnecessary delay into the process. This allows both inadvertent delay of disclosures about government affairs and easy manipulation of the deadline through clarification requests. The Office of the Attorney General distinguishes between new requests framed as clarifications (for which a new ten business-day period applies), clarifications of public information within the scope of initial requests (for which tolling applies), and new information sought as part of legitimate clarifications of original information requested (for which the ten business-day period resets for the new information and tolling applies to information within the scope of the original request). See Tex. Att’y Gen. LA-4352, 1 (2005). The Court not only reverses a decades-old policy of tolling for unclear requests but creates a new category of “vague or overbroad” requests for public information. The Attorney General’s approaches addressed the various circumstances while insisting on compliance with the Legislature’s mandate to address open records requests “without delay.” The Court’s holding could insert delays and increase costs to all parties involved by shifting the emphasis in PIA disclosure disputes from defining “compelling reason” for nondisclosure (in the case of untimely requests) to squabbles over whether non-lawyer members of the public precisely worded their requests to governmental entities for admittedly public information. It is problematic to insert into the Legislature’s PIA scheme of disclosure a bane that exists in civil litigation: incessant disputes over the wording of discovery requests.