The Ohio Supreme Court Upholds a Broad Interpretation of Ohio’s Public Records Act

A recent Ohio Supreme Court decision has solidified the already widespread belief that drafts or proposals relating to documents which will later become public records are themselves public records and subject to disclosure under Ohio's Public Records Act. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that a proposed settlement agreement between the City of Cincinnati and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) was not exempt from disclosure even though it was merely a step in the negotiating process between the two parties. The settlement agreement was in response to a DOJ inquiry into certain practices and patterns of the city's police department. In granting the a motion to compel production of the proposal, the Court upheld a broad application of the public records law which had been established and clarified in several lower court opinions.

Under Ohio's Public Records Law, the duty to make records available only applies to those documents meeting the definitions of "record" and "public record. "Records" are defined as including: Any document, device, or item, regardless of physical form or characteristic, created or received by or coming under the jurisdiction of any public office of the state…which serves to document the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the office. Once a document is deemed a record , it becomes a public record if it is kept by any public office. The Ohio Supreme Court stated that even if a record is not in final form, it may still constitute a 'record' if it documents the organization, policies, functions, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of a public office.

In the Cincinnati Enquirer Decision the Supreme Court noted that the Ohio Public Records statute must be liberally construed in favor of broad access to records kept by public offices, and that any doubt should be resolved in favor of disclosure. Given the narrow application of the statutory exceptions, the inapplicability of federal protections, and the burden of proof favoring disclosure of such records, most documents relating to the activities of public offices, whether in final form or not, will be available upon request to the public.

For more information concerning Public Records issues, please contact Wes Lambert: pwlamb@climacolaw.com