Courts

In a case brought against the City of Norfolk alleging violations of FOIA's response times and fee estimates, a Norfolk Circuit Court gives much deference to FOIA Council prior opinions and finds:

A Fairfax Circuit County judge's order on various pretrial motions in a case brought by a transparency group against George Mason University and the George Mason University Foundation, Inc.

A unanimous Supreme Court rules a Loudoun County parent is not entitled to student growth percentile data for certain Loudoun County Public School students under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.

Henrico circuit judge rules a senator can be sued for a FOIA violation in her individual capacity and that Facebook posts can be public records. But, the Facebook posts in this case are deemed not about public business and so did not need to be disclosed.

Clerks of court are the individual custodians of the court case data supplied to the Office of Executive Secretary's online database.

Virginia state senators are not individually subject to FOIA. (OVERRULED by a subsequent decision)

The letter signed by five members of a city council and presented to another council member in a closed meeting should have been voted on first in open session.

Circuit Court of Richmond Judge W. Allan Sharrett rules Hopewell cannot used a closed meeting to discuss whom to elect to the positions of mayor or vice mayor.

Harki v. Department of Criminal Justice Services: DCJS must turn over database of training records for law enforcement officers. Judge Joseph A. Migliozzi Jr. agrees that they are personnel records, but notes that the department said it would turn the records over (i.e., exercise their discretion to release records that could be withheld) and then reneged. The opinion also rejects the DCJS argument that it didn't own the database and that it really belonged to the individual law enforcement agencies that supplied the data.

The Virginia Supreme Court rules that a trial court must make its own determination of the proprierty of withholding documents when a security interest is cited, but while doing so, it must accord "substantial weight" to the agency's (in the case, the Virginia Department of Corrections) determinations.

The court also holds that there is no duty to redact a record that is exempt under an exemption that is not limited by the phrases "to the extent" and "portions of."

(On this last point, the majority opinion does not even cite 2.2-3704 where it says one of the four allowable responses is to redact a record if it has exempt material in it.)