The Freedom of Information Commission’s (FOIC) authority to deny a hearing in an appeal when it believes doing so would abuse its administrative process does not violate the state constitution according to a recent ruling from the superior court.
The superior court for the district of New Britain recently ruled that the FOIC was within its authority when it denied an appeal hearing to David Godbout. Godbout, who the FOIC has previously found to be a vexatious requestor over Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests submitted to the town of East Lyme and the East Lyme Board of Education, has filed hundreds of requests with the commission.
But at issue in this case is a February 18, 2021 FOIA request Godbout submitted to the FOIC that requested a number of records, including Microsoft Teams and Zoom “sign-on logs” related to the commission’s meetings between October 1, 2020 and February 18, 2021; “collection data” from Microsoft Teams, any contracts between Microsoft Teams and the FOIC for the technology used in their remote meetings; documents related to the FOIC’s selection of technology to conduct remote meetings; and all “staff meeting” minutes from between March 1, 2020 and March 1, 2021.
The FOIC acknowledged the request on March 1, 2021 and informed him on March 19 that it did not maintain any responsive records. The same day, Godbout filed a complaint with the commission. In August 2022 the FOIC’s executive director Colleen Murphy notified the commission and Godbout that she had reason to believe scheduling a hearing for the appeal would be an abuse of the commission’s administrative process.
Per state statute, the commission’s executive director can, with the commission’s leave, decline to schedule a hearing in an appeal if they believe doing so would “constitute an abuse of the commission’s administrative process.” Murphy did so because she found Godbout had filed over 450 complaints with the FOIC and many were “duplicative and/or frivolous” or voluminous in nature. She also found that Godbout had previously failed to appear for hearings, wasting commission resources; had been contemptuous of the commission; and that doing so would prohibit others from having hearings scheduled.
The commission voted to deny Godbout a hearing on August 24, 2022. Godbout appealed the decision to superior court on August 24, 2022, arguing that denying him a hearing was unconstitutional because the right to seek information from the government was a common law right at the time Connecticut’s constitution was adopted. Godbout argued that the legislature can’t restrict that common law right without providing a reasonable alternative and that the commission’s ability to deny him a hearing if doing so would be an abuse of its administrative process was not an alternative. He also argued that the statute authorizing the FOIC to deny hearings is unconstitutionally vague and sought an order requiring the FOIC to hear his complaint.
The court agreed with the FOIC’s argument, that it correctly found granting Godbout a hearing would be an abuse of its administrative process given it does not maintain the requested documents and Godbout’s history with complaints. It also found no merit in Godbout’s claims that the agency’s ability to deny a hearing was unconstitutional, in part because he “failed to present relevant legal authority for the proposition that access to government records was a common law right existing at the time of the adoption of Connecticut’s constitution.”
In addition, the court found that even if such a right did exist, there is “no legal authority for the idea that such a right could be restricted where the request for information was an abuse or constituted an injustice.”
The court also concluded that the statutory authority cited by the FOIC in denying Godbout a hearing provide “a person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to understand what conduct might trigger its application.” They added that this was “particularly true” in Godbout’s case since he had filed over 450 complaints and the statute states the FOIC can refuse to schedule a hearing when a complaint is “repetitious or cumulative.”
Finally, the court found the facts demonstrated the FOIC was correct to deny Godbout a hearing because doing so would have abused its administrative process.
Godbout has already filed an appeal of the decision with the appeals court.
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Great coverage of the ongoing Godbout saga. Without offering opinion on the merits of Godbout’s complaint and appeal, the record request, complaints, and appeal raises a critical question for every CT resident- CT FIC record retention policies and practices. This would be a valuable follow-up investigation / storyline for CII. We learned from experience that in a surprisingly short time, the FIC claims to destroy an eyebrow-raising number of records pertinent to its administration of FOIA record requests, complaints and appeals. Given the ability to cost-effectively store such electronic records in the cloud, the public benefit of, and administrative justification for such policies seems worthy of deeper objective consideration and review.