Missouri Court of Appeals for the Eastern District in St. Louis
ST. LOUIS — The Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District has vacated a St. Louis Circuit Court judgment that found the city of Fenton and City Clerk Jane Hungler purposefully violated the Missouri Sunshine Law in a dispute over a $1,900 fee for email records requested by Cypress Horan LLC.
In a July 28 decision, the appellate court reversed and remanded the case, finding that the circuit court granted relief on a purposeful Sunshine Law violation that Cypress Horan had not pleaded in the count on which it won summary judgment.
The lower court had also ordered the city to pay $131,088.75 in attorney’s fees and a $5,000 civil penalty.
The appeals court said Cypress Horan’s Count Five alleged a statutory violation of Section 610.026 based on the city’s flat $1,900 charge to use an outside IT consultant to access current and historical email records.
But the circuit court ruled that Fenton had purposefully violated the Sunshine Law under provisions requiring findings about intent. The appellate court concluded that the petition did not contain allegations supporting the elements of a purposeful violation in Count Five.
The court said a trial court may not enter judgment on a cause of action a plaintiff did not plead. It found that the circuit court’s remedies, the civil penalty and attorney’s fees, were available only after a finding of a purposeful violation and were not available for the statutory violation alleged in Count Five.
The dispute began after Cypress Horan made a Sunshine Law request to the city on April 16, 2021, seeking four categories of public records.
The request included emails of city staff and elected officials, staff reports, meeting minutes, executive-session minutes and votes, plats, zoning materials, rezoning petitions, applicant submissions, citizen correspondence and related legislation.
The city responded the next business day, saying the breadth of the requests would require more than three days to compile and would require its contracted IT consultant to search city servers because Fenton did not have in-house IT services.
The city clerk told Cypress Horan that the consultant charged the city a flat $1,900 fee for server searches and that the city could recoup that expense.
Cypress Horan later authorized a server search and submitted nine categories of requested email records.
Some had time limits dating to 2010, while others had no time limits. One category sought emails containing any of 60 listed keywords.
The city then said the expanded requests were expected to involve hundreds of thousands of emails and requested an additional $2,000 deposit.
It estimated that city employees would need about 1,250 hours to review the records, redact closed material and pull responsive documents, creating a projected eight-month timeline.
By June 18, 2021, the city said its IT consultant had recovered more than 225,000 emails but had been directed to halt further work until the additional deposit was received.
Cypress Horan objected to the added charge and asked what records it could obtain for the $1,900 already paid.
After receiving no further response, the city considered the email-records request withdrawn on July 6, 2021, and refunded Cypress Horan’s deposits.
Cypress Horan filed a petition in December 2021 alleging nine Sunshine Law violations. Five counts were dismissed, and both sides later sought summary judgment on the remaining claims.
The circuit court granted Cypress Horan summary judgment on Count Five, finding that the city purposefully violated the law by imposing the $1,900 charge, seeking additional money and preventing future access to records.
The appellate majority said the circuit court also relied on allegations that either had not been pleaded or had been raised in counts previously dismissed.
Those included a finding that the city had improperly granted its IT consultant the exclusive right to access and disseminate public records.
Chief Judge Renée D. Hardin-Tammons wrote the majority opinion. Judge Angela T. Quigless concurred.
Judge Thomas C. Clark II dissented, writing that Cypress Horan had sufficiently alleged a purposeful violation through a section of its petition containing allegations common to all counts and incorporated by reference.
Clark said the circuit court had sufficient uncontroverted evidence to enter summary judgment against Fenton.
Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District, Division Three case number: ED113842
