Opinion ID: 2376955
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 23

Heading: Fees and Costs on Appeal

Text: ¶ 80 Justice Sanders requests costs and attorneys fees from this appeal. See PAWS II, 124 Wash.2d at 271, 877 P.2d 187 (interpreting RCW 42.56.550(4) [29] to include appellate costs and fees); RAP 18.1(b) (requiring the attorney fees request to appear in Justice Sanders's opening brief). ¶ 81 There is no reason why the definition of prevailing under the PRA on appeal should differ from the definition at trial. We therefore focus on issues bearing on either the right to inspect or copy or the right to receive a response. [30] RCW 42.56.550(4). [31] ¶ 82 With this understanding in mind, the issues relevant to the apportionment of costs and fees on appeal are (1) whether Justice Sanders's agreed not to challenge what AGO produced in response to his PRA request, (2) whether AGO violated the PRA by not providing a brief explanation, (3) what remedy follows from that violation, (4) whether AGO waived claiming exemption on the SPDs, and (5) whether each claimed exemption ultimately was valid. To assess the extent to which Justice Sanders prevailed on appeal, we summarize our disposition of these issues: (1) We affirm, on different grounds, the trial court's determination that Justice Sanders did not forgo his challenge to what AGO produced in response to his PRA request. Justice Sanders prevailed on this issue. (2) We affirm the trial court's holding that AGO violated the PRA by not providing a brief explanation. Justice Sanders prevailed on this issue. (3) We affirm the trial court's holding that the remedy for the brief explanation violation is consideration when awarding costs and fees or imposing penalties for wrongful withholding. Justice Sanders argued for waiver or estoppel, and the State argued that the only remedy was to compel an explanation. Neither party prevailed on the remedy issue. (4) We affirm the trial court's holding that AGO did not waive the SPDs' exemption. The State prevailed on this issue. (5) We affirm the trial court's rulings on all of the claimed exemptions except for SPDs 44 and 50-52. The State prevailed on the claimed exemptions we upheld (more than 95 percent of them), while Justice Sanders prevailed on the four claims of exemption we overturned (less than 5 percent). ¶ 83 As the trial court concluded, the fourth of these issues is the most important because the PRA's ultimate purpose is the production of public records. Justice Sanders therefore prevailed on only a small percentage of the most important issue, making it appropriate to discount his costs and fees. Considering the amount of work during this appeal allocated to the issues on which Justice Sanders prevailed, we find it appropriate to award Justice Sanders 25 percent of his total costs and fees on appeal.