Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) fees; MCL 15.234(1); Allegedly overbroad responses; “Good-faith deposit” calculation; MCL 15.234(8); Whether a fee was unwarranted under MCL 15.234(3); Civil fines; MCL 15.240b; Punitive damages; MCL 15.240a(7); Motion to disqualify the trial court judge; MCR 2.003; Cain v Department of Corr

The court held that defendant-City was permitted to charge a fee for production of the videos requested by plaintiff, and its “method of calculating its estimated fees was proper[.]” Further, the final fee it charged for his first FOIA request was proper, and it properly provided a good-faith estimate for his second and third FOIA requests. The court also rejected his claims that civil fines, costs, and punitive damages were warranted under FOIA. Finally, it concluded the trial court did not err in denying his motion to disqualify the judge. Plaintiff, a reporter, submitted three requests to the City police department (the LPD) for body-camera footage. He asserted “defendant violated FOIA by charging an impermissible fee for each request.” The trial court granted defendant summary disposition. On appeal, the court first rejected plaintiff’s claim that “defendant’s responses were overbroad and contributed to the high fee estimate.” As to his first FOIA request, the court determined that “each of the 14 videos identified was related to the relevant arrest and resulting investigation.” As to his second “request, each of the seven videos identified was related to the relevant arrests and resulting investigations.” As to his third “request, each of the four videos identified was related to the relevant arrest. Therefore, the trial court did not clearly err by concluding that the identified videos were responsive to plaintiff’s FOIA requests.” As to the lawfulness of the imposed fees, the relevant issue on appeal regarding the first request was “whether the final fee was compliant with MCL 15.234.” An LPD captain “attested that the actual amount of time spent processing [that] request took longer than defendant had anticipated” in calculating its estimated fee but it “did not increase the fee to reflect the actual time spent. Because the final fee was less than the fee would be for the actual time spent processing the request, [it] was compliant with MCL 15.234(1).” The issue on appeal as to the second and third requests, for which plaintiff did not pay the deposit, was “whether the fee estimates complied with MCL 15.234.” The court found the record supported that defendant’s response to those requests “constituted a ‘good-faith calculation of the total fee’” as required by MCL 15.234(8). Affirmed.