Opinion ID: 2376955
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Subsequent Production

Text: ¶ 27 Justice Sanders contends that AGO waived its right to claim that the SPDs were exempt when it produced them after suit was filed. He urges us to hold that agencies may not force a requester to sue and then escape penalties by producing the documents after litigation begins. AGO responds that it has always maintained that the documents were exempt, but, after outside counsel reviewed them, AGO determined that it considered several of the documents innocuous and so produced them in a good-faith effort to narrow the area of dispute. The trial court found that the State had disclaimed waiver and had maintained that the documents were exempt. CP at 1720. It therefore held that the State had not waived the right to claim exemptions, nor was it estopped from doing so. Id. ¶ 28 The determination of waiver is a mixed question of law and fact. Brundridge v. Fluor Fed. Servs., Inc., 164 Wash.2d 432, 440-41, 191 P.3d 879 (2008). The record supports the trial court's crediting of the State's claim that it did not intend to relinquish its claimed exemptions. CP at 115, 378, 1090-91, 1093, 1113. AGO simply determined that it did not care if certain documents were produced and so it produced them. We decline to penalize agencies that cooperate with PRA litigants in this manner by construing such cooperation as a waiver. ¶ 29 Nor do we believe that production of documents after the requester files suit ipso facto admits that the initial withholding of the documents was wrongful. The PRA's purpose is to increase access to government records. See RCW 42.56.030. [12] If an agency were deemed to concede wrongdoing simply because it produced documents during litigation, it would reduce the incentive for agencies to produce the documents. This outcome would be antithetical to the legislative intent. Rather, the appropriate inquiry is whether the records are exempt from disclosure. If they are exempt, the agency's withholding of them was lawful and its subsequent production of them irrelevant. If they are nonexempt, the agency wrongfully withheld the records and the appropriate penalty applies for the numbers of days the record was wrongfully withheldin other words, until the record was produced. This interpretation of the PRA provides an incentive for agencies to produce records for which claims of exemption may fail in an effort to reduce their exposure to potential penalties. This was the approach followed by the trial court in this case, CP at 1720, and we affirm its resolution of this issue.