Court Opinion

ID: 9801506
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 08:49:58.394217+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:48:34.082913
License: Public Domain

Pfeifer, J.,
dissenting.
{¶ 38} The county engineer in this case has intertwined public records with proprietary software and expects citizens seeking public records to pay an exorbitant price to untie the knot. A person seeking public records should expect to pay the price for copying the records, but not the price for a public entity’s mistake in purchasing inefficient software. Will every citizen asking for what relator, Robert Gambill, seeks — access to records that the majority acknowledges are public records — also have to pay $2,000? The holding in this case encourages public entities desiring secrecy to hide public records within a software lockbox and require individual citizens to provide the golden key to unlock it.