Freedom of Information Act (FOIA); Whether the Michigan Department of Corrections’ (MDOC) responses requesting good-faith deposits constituted final determinations; MCL 15.234 & 235; Arabo v Michigan Gaming Control Bd; Appeal for a fee reduction; MCL 15.240a(1)(a); Timeliness of charged fees

In this case involving FOIA requests, the court held that “there were no final determinations for plaintiff to challenge, plaintiff did not properly appeal the fees, and plaintiff failed to commence an action in the Court of Claims within the statutorily-mandated 45 days after receipt of the notices.” Thus, summary disposition and dismissal was proper. The “complaint alleged that the MDOC violated the FOIA by withholding the requested records, by neglecting to list the applicable exemptions, and by charging the fees.” Plaintiff argued “that the MDOC’s responses constituted a final determination and thereby allowed plaintiff to challenge the MDOC’s alleged” FOIA violations. Plaintiff further argued “that its lawsuit challenging the charged fees was timely.” The court concluded that “the contested MDOC responses were not final determinations under MCL 15.235, rather, they were requests for good-faith deposits under MCL 15.234. Thus, the MDOC was not obligated to respond with a final determination until after the deposits were paid. Without a final determination, any lawsuit premised on such a determination was improper.” Plaintiff also asserted “that Arabo was an inappropriate precedent for the Court of Claims to ground its decision in.” Plaintiff sought “to distinguish Arabo on the basis that it addressed a former version of the FOIA, particularly MCL 15.234 and MCL 15.235. However, a juxtaposition of the current versions of” these statutes to the pre-2015 versions the court applied in Arabo indicated “that Arabo remains controlling.” The court noted that there was “no provision suggesting that a public body must issue a final determination while withholding the requested records.” It found that because “the MDOC’s responses were not final determinations, plaintiff’s sole option was to contest the fee determinations themselves.” But while it “appealed the MDOC’s responses, these appeals were not premised on the fees; rather, plaintiff challenged the MDOC’s alleged failure to identify exemptions, to render the requested material publicly accessible, and to separate exempt from nonexempt material.” The court noted that “MCL 15.240a(1)(a) mandates that ‘a written appeal for a fee reduction’ must identify ‘how the required fee exceeds the amount permitted under the public body’s available procedures and guidelines or [MCL 15.234].’” The court held that plaintiff’s “appeals failed to do so, and it is undisputed that plaintiff did not pay the good-faith deposits. Thus, under MCL 15.234(14), because [it] omitted the deposits and neglected to appeal the deposits’ amounts pursuant to MCL 15.240a with a 45-day time frame, the FOIA requests were deemed abandoned, and the MDOC was no longer obligated to fulfill” the requests. The court added that even “assuming that plaintiff initiated appeals of the fees under MCL 15.240a(1)(a), its complaint remained untimely.” Affirmed.