Time to respond to a FOIA request; Reasonableness; MCL 15.231(2); MCL 15.233(3); MCL 15.234(8)

The court affirmed the circuit court order granting defendant-city summary disposition in this FOIA dispute because to adopt plaintiffs’ position “would have the effect of the judiciary rewriting a properly enacted statute.” The appeal arose from a dispute over the amount of time the city estimated it would take to respond to a 3/20/23 FOIA request. The court found that plaintiffs did not cite, nor did it find, “any binding authority addressing the time within which a public body must fulfill a request for public records under Michigan’s FOIA.” Plaintiffs did not allege “that defendant acted arbitrarily and capriciously. As plaintiffs readily conceded in the trial court, there is no express provision in Michigan’s FOIA that gives public bodies a specific time limit within which to fulfill requests.” The court found “no error in the circuit court’s determination that the public policy articulated in MCL 15.231(2) stresses that eligible persons are entitled to the full and complete disclosure of nonexempt public records, but it does not indicate a time frame within which those records must be disclosed.” It also agreed “that MCL 15.233(3) did not apply to plaintiffs’ request.” The court has interpreted the statute “to apply to the time allowed and the setting provided for the personal inspection, examination, and copying of public records.” The court noted that plaintiffs “did not request to inspect, examine, or copy records in an environment provided by and controlled by defendant. [Their] request did not trigger a concern addressed in MCL 15.233(3). Therefore, the trial court did not err by concluding” it did not apply. The court found that the “only provision addressing a time frame for fulfillment of a FOIA request that will cost more than $50 is MCL 15.234(8). When a public body’s fulfillment of a record request exceeds $50, MCL 15.234(8) authorizes the public body to request a good-faith deposit of half the estimated cost, and it requires the public body to provide a nonbinding, good-faith ‘best efforts estimate’ of the ‘time frame it will take the public body to comply with the law in providing the public records to the requestor.’” There was “no dispute that defendant followed this procedure.” Plaintiffs assumed “that FOIA implies legislative intent for requests to be fulfilled within a reasonable time, i.e., ‘promptly.’” They urged the court to ‘“establish a rebuttable presumption that a public body fulfill—or at least begin fulfilling—a FOIA request within 30 days of the requestor’s deposit in order to provide requestors a “reasonable opportunity” to access public records and participate in’ the democratic process.” But given that the FOIA does not “contain a deadline within which public bodies must fulfill FOIA requests, and considering that plaintiffs have identified no ambiguities in the statutory language that require clarification,” they essentially asked the court “to disregard MCL 15.234(8) and to impose deadlines that the Legislature has not seen fit to impose.”