Court Opinion

ID: 9600159
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:24:47.120159+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:35.584287
License: Public Domain

ESPINOSA, Judge,
dissenting in part:
I respectfully disagree with the majority opinion only as to the granting of the cross-appeal. The majority, in effect, fashions a new rule for finding arbitrary and capricious action in the county attorney’s misguided but good faith refusal to comply with a broad disclosure request, and then sanctions the county for violating it. I would find no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s determination that the county’s position was neither arbitrary nor capricious, given the “global” nature of the production request here for an estimated thirteen thousand computer entries covering an entire year’s worth of personnel records, telephone messages, and interoffice communications, legitimate concerns regarding such wholesale disclosure which go far beyond those related to the police report at issue in Cox, and new questions concerning the privacy of electronic mail in the workplace. As suggested at oral argument, this may indeed be a case where technology has once again outpaced the law.