Local Open Government Blog : Open Government Law : Foster Pepper Law Firm : Northwest, Seattle, Spokane, Portland Lawyer & Attorney

The preservation and destruction of public records is governed by Chapter 40.14 RCW.  Local Governments are responsible for adopting appropriate records retention policies and procedures.  The local records committee establishes retention schedules for different types of local governments that specify retention periods applicable to different categorizes of public records.  These schedules are available on the Washington State Archives website.  Local governments should also consider other applicable retention schedules.  For example, public hospital districts should consider the Medicare conditions of participation and the Joint Commission requirements, among others.  Failure to adopt and implement appropriate records retention and destruction policies and procedures may result in financial penalties and even in possible criminal sanctions because the destruction or mutilation of a public record is a felony under certain circumstances.  See Chapter 40.16 RCW.  Individual officers and employees should make sure that they adhere to the retention schedule with respect to documents that they maintain, such as any email that constitutes a public record (whether or not the email is on a government, personal or business computer).

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Update 7/5

What does this mean for other PRA cases?  If you have a case at the penalty stage, I'd probably seek a stay because unless the Court adopts the identical test,  if you do it now you'll just have to do it again later.

Original Post

The Washington State Supreme Court has withdrawn its January Opinion in the long-running Yousoufian v. Office of Ron Sims case.  In that Opinion, the Supreme Court had ruled that the $124,000 Public Records Act penalty award against King County was too small.  The Opinion adopted 16 factors trial courts should use to set penalty amounts.  For more details on the Opinion, see this MRSC article.

King County had moved to have the Opinion withdrawn after it was revealed that the Opinion author, Justice Richard Sanders, had a pending appeal in a Public Records Act case, where he was relying on his Yousoufian Opinion to argue that his judgment against the State should be increased.  In light of the recent U.S. Supreme Court holding in Caperton v. Massey that a West Virginia Supreme Court Justice's decision not to recuse himself violated due process, this result is not surprising. 

Here is an article in the Seattle Times on the Supreme Court's ruling.  Here is a post on the Supreme Court Blog about the order. 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link