After nine years, a lawsuit against the city of Langley over public records is finally over.
South Whidbey resident Eric Hood filed a Public Records Act lawsuit against the city of Langley in 2016. It was one of five that Hood filed against the city over the years; he has also filed dozens against agencies across the state. Last week, for example, the state Court of Appeals ruled in his favor in a PRA lawsuit against the city of Vancouver.
But in his 2016 case against Langley, the state Supreme Court recently denied Hood’s request for discretionary review because it was untimely.
“This is obviously very good news for the city,” Langley Mayor Kennedy Horstman said in an email. “I am grateful and relieved, but the city still faces two outstanding Hood cases so we’re not out of the woods yet.”
The case has a long and complex history that began with Hood requesting a former mayor’s journals, diaries, notebooks, personal calendars and handwritten comments. He filed a lawsuit after he felt the city did not provide the responsive documents.
A former superior court judge granted the city’s motion for summary judgment in 2017, but Hood appealed. The state Appeals Court ruled in his favor on several issues, finding that there were unresolved issues of fact. The case was sent back to superior court.
In 2023, Island County Superior Court Judge Carolyn Cliff heard the case and ruled in favor of Hood in one area of the sprawling lawsuit. She found that the city had fair notice from court filings in 2017 that Hood did not believe he had narrowed his request for the former mayor’s calendar. At that point, the city had five days to respond to his un-narrowed request, but the city did not do that until 2019.
Cliff ordered the city to pay just $5 for each day the copies of the electronic calendars were withheld. Since it took 1,063 days to fulfill the request, the penalty amounted to $5,315. Cliff ordered the city to pay $30,700 in attorney’s fees, which was about half of the request.
Hood and the city both filed appeals in the state Appeals Court. The court found that Cliff did not abuse her discretion in setting the monetary penalties, which Hood thought should be higher. The court also denied the city’s request for sanctions against Hood.
Hood provided a statement with his side of the story.
“Just before leaving office in 2016,” he wrote, “former Mayor McCarthy destroyed unknown numbers of records a week after receiving a records request. I then requested McCarthy’s electronic calendars. Contrary to legal advice, city withheld them but told me it withheld nothing. A week later, I made a separate request, which city ‘interpreted’ to mean that I no longer wanted the calendars. A month later, I told the city that my first request was unchanged. I sued. City continued to deny any withholding. City won. I appealed.
“Three years later, city disclosed the calendars and admitted that it never searched for them. It continued to litigate for four more years because it ‘believed’ I didn’t want the calendars. The trial court found that the city was justified in its ‘belief,’ but only for one month. It therefore made the city pay my attorney fees and a penalty. I appealed a second time because the trial court found that the city had acted honestly. The Court of Appeals agreed but did not notify me of its decision. I appealed to the Supreme Court. It denied my case without considering city’s dishonesty because my appeal was untimely.”
Hood claims that Langley officials haven’t learned the importance of following open government laws.
“Nine years later, city is less transparent, its insurance premiums have more than doubled and its private attorneys pocketed approximately $500,000 — all at taxpayer expense, yet city officials rejoice,” he wrote in an email.
