Times & P-I on my King County PDA lawsuit verdict

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Reporters for both the Seattle Times and P-I reached me yesterday by cell phone, while I was out of town, for comments on Wednesday's verdict in my Public Disclosure Act Case.

You'll find below the links to each of the articles.

I am certainly disappointed with the subtitle of the Seattle Times' article suggesting I "lost" the case (appears only in the hard copy and probably done by an editor, not the reporter, who was very interested in the case and sympathetic) and a comment early in the article (more difficult to attribute to any editor). I hardly "lost" my case - I ultimately won enough to cover all my legal fees and out of pocket legal costs (deposition and transcription costs, copying charges, etc. - each category was in the thousands and combined were into 5 figures). But I didn't win enough to deter repeat conduct by government in response to future Public Disclosure Act requests nor enough to allow for any but a select few litigants to sue to enforce the law - and citizen lawsuits are essentially the only mechanism to force compliance. It's the public and future document requestors who "lost".

Even as we speak, yours truly is involved in another PDA situation involving a "quasi-governmental" entity funded by King County taxpayers where I have been met with a response which is in some ways worse than the response from Sims in 1997 (you may hear more about that in the future). Not to mention Stefan Sharkansky's current experiences with the King County elections office (see many entries the past 9 months at: www.SoundPolitics.com ).

I am also disappointed that this story was not front page, above the fold, in either paper (though admittedly there were competing stories). The Seattle Times had it front page, below the fold, of the Local Section. (The P-I had it on page 2 of the Local Section). The total verdict is certainly a U.S. and free world record for such a case. The case was about yet another misdeed/debacle involving Ron Sims, with a finding of "gross negligence", where there was four years' withholding of documents that revealed what I feel certain were "rigged" studies, etc. In January, 2003, when I won my first appeal, and with a verdict then of $114,000, the Times did run their story on the front page, below the fold. Wednesday's verdict bumped the verdict up to nearly $400,000. Why wouldn't that development in the story not have been bumped it up the page?

As for the P-I, this was the first coverage ever of this story. In fact, when the P-I reporter identified himself, I told him that the P-I had never covered this story, and was certainly glad they were finally doing so.

Here are the titles and the links to the stories. In case the links don't work, the text (but not graphics, photos, etc.) of each story is included after the links:

Seattle Times:

Saturday, August 27, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
Fine in stadium verdict called "peanuts"
By Christine Clarridge

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002454043_armen27m.html


Seattle P-I:

Saturday, August 27, 2005

County must pay $300,000 in dispute over public records
Public records penalty increased, but not by enough, plaintiff says

By GREGORY ROBERTS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/238237_countyfine27.html


Seattle Times article:

Saturday, August 27, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
Fine in stadium verdict called "peanuts"
By Christine Clarridge
Seattle Times staff reporter

Armen Yousoufian took case to state high court.

A Seattle hotelier, who took on King County for its failure to release public documents on what the county would gain from a Seahawks football stadium, lost an eight-year court battle this week when a judge fined the county $15 per violation for each day it flouted the public-records law.

The fine and fees levied against the county of almost $500,000 make it the largest Public Disclosure Act verdict in the state's history, but the ruling was seen by some as a blow to the act.

"It's peanuts to the county, and it won't change their behavior," said David Balint, an attorney for hotelier Armen Yousoufian. "The message to the people is that they will have to be wealthy and able to hire a lawyer to get the government to give them documents."

A spokeswoman for the county expressed satisfaction with the outcome.

"We're pleased the judge agreed that it should not be the higher amount that was sought, and we also note that there was never a finding of bad faith on the county's part," said Carolyn Duncan, a spokeswoman for King County Executive Ron Sims, who was named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

Yousoufian began his battle with King County in May 1997 — before county voters narrowly approved an initiative on Seahawks Stadium, now known as Qwest Field — when he requested all studies about the proposed economic benefits to the county from the stadium. He filed the request under the state Public Disclosure Act, designed to give the public access to government documents.

At the time, the county was pushing the initiative, and the vote on providing taxpayer financing for the stadium was scheduled for June. The county told Yousoufian that he couldn't get the documents until after the vote.

Even after the vote, records were not released, and Yousoufian sued in King County Superior Court. Judge Kathleen Learned determined in 2001 that the county had violated the Public Disclosure Act and had been negligent in providing documents to Yousoufian "at every step of the way." She charged the county for Yousoufian's lawyers' fees and assessed a penalty of $5 per bundle of documents for each day the county delayed.

The Public Disclosure Act — which resulted from a public initiative approved in 1972 — allows a judge to penalize a government agency anywhere from $5 to $100 per day for each record it fails to disclose in a timely manner. Even at the low end of the range, that would have come to a penalty of more than $1.5 million, which Learned said was too much

Yousoufian's attorneys said the judge then arbitrarily decided to bundle the documents into 10 groups and assess the county $5 per day per group of documents, penalizing the county a total of $25,440.

Yousoufian and backers of the Public Disclosure Act argued that there were far more than 10 documents involved and that the fine was too little.

Yousoufian, who said he believed the penalty should be at the top end of the scale, took his case through an appeals court and to the state Supreme Court.

In its ruling last year, the high court agreed that $5 a day was too little, and remanded the case back to King County Superior Court.

The high court, however, found no problem with bundling the documents into groups. It also provided no guidelines to the trial court on how much more than $5 a day to set the penalty, or on how to enumerate the documents in question.

"We asked them to help us define 'documents' and give us guidance on penalties, but they didn't do it. They punted," Balint said.

Superior Court Judge Michael Hayden, who heard oral arguments in the case last week, issued a ruling on Thursday, fining the county $15 a day per document as defined by Learned in the 2001 decision. The total came to $123,000.

In his ruling, Hayden cited a Court of Appeals decision to fine a school district $10 a day in a similar public-disclosure case.

The judge also awarded nearly all of Yousoufian's requested attorneys' fees of about $250,000, including $171,000 rung up during the appeals process and about $80,000 for the earlier trial-court work.

Yousoufian said he will recover little more than his out-of-pocket legal expenses.

"This outcome means most people will never get a lawyer to take such a case," he said. "All in all, it's bad for the public and another sad day for democracy."

Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com

Seattle Times staff reporter Maureen O'Hagan contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company


P-I Article:
Saturday, August 27, 2005

County must pay $300,000 in dispute over public records
Public records penalty increased, but not by enough, plaintiff says

By GREGORY ROBERTS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

In the latest twist in a long-running fight over citizen access to official documents, a court this week ordered King County to pay nearly $300,000 to businessman Armen Yousoufian -- by far the largest award ever in a state public records case, Yousoufian and his lawyer say. Yousoufian's reaction?

"I'm disgusted."

The monetary judgment, he said Friday, isn't nearly big enough to deter official agencies from stonewalling the public's right to know. Not only that, he said, but the county still hasn't given him all the records he has asked for.

In 1997, Yousoufian, who lives on Vashon Island, heard County Executive Ron Sims on the radio touting the economic benefits of a new stadium for the Seattle Seahawks professional football team. Voters statewide were to decide in June of that year on a $325 million stadium tax package. They approved it.

Skeptical of Sims' claims, Yousoufian asked the county to show him the economic-impact studies cited by Sims and any others like it, as well as details on how the studies were paid for.

It took four years of intermittent releases of information for the county to deliver. By then, Yousoufian had sued under the state public records law.

In 2001, King County Superior Court Judge Kathleen Learned ruled that the county had failed to comply with the law's requirements for prompt disclosure. But the failure, she said, was the result of incompetence rather than a deliberate effort to conceal information.

The judge imposed the minimum penalty: $5 for each day of delay in responding, applied to several categories of requests.

On Yousoufian's appeal, the state Supreme Court said the $5 rate was too low and sent the case back to Superior Court. On Thursday, Judge Michael Hayden set the rate at $15 (the maximum is $100), for a total penalty of $123,780. He also ordered the county to pay Yousoufian attorneys' fees of $171,100.

Yousoufian said he may appeal again. A Sims spokeswoman said the county won't contest Hayden's ruling.

P-I reporter Gregory Roberts can be reached at 206-448-8022 or gregoryroberts@seattlepi.com.