Opinion ID: 2268910
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The City Has the Opportunity to Inspect Fimia's Hard Drive for the Requested Metadata

Text: ¶ 20 Next, we give the City the opportunity to inspect Fimia's home computer's hard drive for the requested metadata. While the City has searched Fimia's e-mail folder for the deleted e-mail and its associated metadata, the City has not inspected the hard drive of Fimia's home computer. The City has a duty to provide records to the public that are subject to the PRA. RCW 42.56.070(1). Information that must be disclosed under the PRA conceivably exists on the hard drive of Fimia's computer. If it is possible for the City to retrieve this information, the PRA requires that it be found and released to the O'Neills. We will not yet say unequivocally that the City violated the PRA. The City still has the opportunity to search for the requested metadata on Fimia's home computer's hard drive. We note that this inspection is appropriate only because Fimia used her personal computer for city business. [4] If government employees could circumvent the PRA by using their home computers for government business, the PRA could be drastically undermined. We remand the case for the trial court to give the City the chance to search for the requested metadata, and to determine whether the City has violated the PRA. ¶ 21 In sum, we affirm the Court of Appeals ruling that remanded the case to the trial court. If, on remand, the City refuses to inspect Fimia's home computer's hard drive for the metadata, the trial court should find that the City violated the PRA, as the City will not have provided the O'Neills with the requested metadata. If the City inspects Fimia's home computer's hard drive, however, the trial court will be better able to determine what the requested metadata looks like. If the requested metadata is discovered during this inspection, the City is required to provide it to the O'Neills. Of course, the O'Neills were provided with two other copies of metadata: one from Thwing's e-mail to Way, and one from when Thwing resent her e-mail to Fimia on September 29. If the trial court determines that the metadata already provided to the O'Neills is identical to the metadata that the O'Neills actually asked for, the already released metadata may be sufficient. If the metadata from the September 18 e-mail cannot be found on Fimia's computer or if the metadata on the September 18 e-mail is not identical to the already released metadata, the trial court must determine, consistent with this court's opinion, whether the City's deletion of the metadata violated the PRA. If appropriate, the trial court should determine the monetary penalty under the PRA.