AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF ARIZONA, Plaintiff/Appellee, v. ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF CHILD SAFETY, Defendant/Appellant.
No. CV-20-0030-PR
SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA
Filed August 25, 2021
248 Ariz. 26 (App. 2020)
The Honorable David B. Gass, Judge
Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County No. CV2014-007505 AFFIRMED IN PART, VACATED IN PART, AND REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS Opinion of the Court of Appeals, Division One VACATED IN PART
COUNSEL:
Mark Brnovich, Arizona Attorney General, Tom Jose (argued), Assistant Attorney General, Mesa, Attorneys for Arizona Department of Child Safety
D. Andrew Gaona (argued), Keith Beauchamp, Roopali H. Desai, Coppersmith Brockelman PLC, Phoenix, Attorneys for American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona
Jonathan Riches, Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation at the Goldwater Institute, Phoenix; Daniel J. Adelman, Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, Phoenix; Rose Daly-Rooney, Arizona Center for Disability Law, Tucson, Attorneys for Amici Curiae Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, Goldwater Institute, and Arizona Center for Disability Law
Daniel C. Barr, Karl J. Worsham, Perkins Coie LLP, Phoenix, Attorneys for Amicus Curiae First Amendment Coalition of Arizona
JUSTICE BEENE authored the Opinion of the Court, in which CHIEF JUSTICE BRUTINEL, VICE CHIEF JUSTICE TIMMER, and JUSTICE BOLICK* joined.**
¶1 Under
BACKGROUND
¶2 In May 2013, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona (“ACLU-AZ“) sent the first of three public records requests to the Department of Child Safety (“DCS“)1 seeking records about child welfare services. This first request consisted of thirty items with multiple subparts. DCS responded to six of ACLU-AZ‘s requests by producing documents within three months of the initial request, but then stopped communicating with ACLU-AZ.
¶3 In January 2014, ACLU-AZ submitted a second and third request for public records from DCS. DCS neither acknowledged nor answered these requests.
¶4 After several months of no communication from DCS, ACLU-AZ sent a final demand letter about its outstanding public-records requests. DCS responded by acknowledging the delay and stated it was “actively pursuing a review of the remainder of [ACLU-AZ‘s] data requests to determine what data can still be produced without creating an undue burden.” ACLU-AZ then filed a special action and requested attorney fees and costs. See
¶5 The trial court rejected ACLU-AZ‘s request that it compel DCS to create and produce records responsive to the outstanding requests but did not decide if the CHILDS database itself was a public record. Ultimately, the court denied ACLU-AZ‘s request for attorney fees and costs because it found that ACLU-AZ did not “substantially prevail.” ACLU-AZ appealed.
¶6 In American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona v. Department of Child Safety (ACLU-AZ I), 240 Ariz. 142, 151 ¶ 27 (App. 2016), the court of appeals agreed with DCS that ACLU-AZ‘s request could not require DCS to “tally and compile information in CHILDS” into new documents and then produce them. But the court agreed with ACLU-AZ that the CHILDS database was a public record. Id. at 146 ¶ 8. It therefore remanded the case to the trial court to determine whether DCS promptly provided the post-litigation documents stored in CHILDS to ACLU-AZ, and, if not, whether DCS‘s failure constituted a denial of records as defined under
¶7 On remand, ACLU-AZ argued that because the court of appeals found that the electronic records and data maintained by DCS in CHILDS made it a public record, ACLU-AZ substantially prevailed and should be awarded attorney fees and costs. DCS asserted that ACLU-AZ did not substantially prevail because DCS never argued that CHILDS was not a public record, but rather that it was not required to create new documents using that database.
¶8 The trial court agreed with ACLU-AZ and held that the “crux of the case” was whether CHILDS was a public record. The
¶9 In American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona v. Department of Child Safety (ACLU-AZ II), 248 Ariz. 26, 29-31 ¶¶ 11-19 (App. 2020), the court of appeals affirmed the trial court‘s ruling regarding DCS‘s failure to promptly furnish post-litigation documents to ACLU-AZ. It, however, reversed the trial court on the issue of whether ACLU-AZ had “substantially prevailed,” id. at 34-35 ¶¶ 32-34, finding that the trial court erred by relying on ACLU-AZ I‘s holding that CHILDS is a public record as its basis for determining that ACLU-AZ “substantially prevailed,” id. at 32 ¶ 22. The court of appeals reasoned that the trial court should have considered the scope of the relief sought and the scope of the documents produced to determine whether ACLU-AZ “substantially prevailed.” Id. at 35 ¶ 33. The court of appeals remanded to the trial court to determine whether ACLU-AZ should be awarded attorney fees based on the opinion. Id. ¶ 34.
¶10 We accepted review to clarify what a trial court should consider when determining if a party has “substantially prevailed” under
DISCUSSION
¶11 We review questions of statutory interpretation de novo. Johnson Utils., L.L.C. v. Ariz. Corp. Comm‘n, 249 Ariz. 215, 219 ¶ 11 (2020). In interpreting a statutory provision, we give words “their ordinary meaning unless it appears from the context or otherwise that a different meaning is intended.” Arizona ex rel. Brnovich v. Maricopa Cnty. Cmty. Coll. Dist. Bd., 243 Ariz. 539, 541 ¶ 7 (2018) (quoting State v. Miller, 100 Ariz. 288, 296 (1966)). We review a trial court‘s award or denial of attorney fees for an abuse of discretion. Democratic Party of Pima Cnty. v. Ford, 228 Ariz. 545, 547 ¶ 6 (App. 2012). If a plaintiff is found to have substantially prevailed in an action seeking to enforce a public records request, the trial court has broad discretion under
I.
¶12 Section 39-121.02(B) states that “[t]he court may award attorney fees and other legal costs that are reasonably incurred in any action under this article if the person seeking public records has substantially prevailed.” ACLU-AZ argues that the court of appeals erred by restricting the trial court‘s authority to award attorney fees and costs so that a party may only “substantially prevail” based on the records they receive. ACLU-AZ contends that this restrictive interpretation has no basis in the statute‘s text. We agree.
¶13 In ACLU-AZ II, the court of appeals correctly observed that “‘[s]ubstantially prevailed’ is not specifically defined in
¶14 The word “substantial” is defined as “[i]mportant, essential, and material; of real worth and importance.” Substantial, Black‘s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019). And “prevail” is defined as “[t]o obtain the relief sought in an action.” Prevail, Black‘s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019). Combining these definitions within the context of
¶15 In ACLU-AZ II, however, the court of appeals concluded that “the statute‘s plain language . . . tells us that a party may only ‘substantially prevail’ based on documents received as a result of the action,” 248 Ariz. at 32 ¶ 24, and that “[a] party cannot be considered to have substantially prevailed based on factors unrelated to the documents they have received,” id. at 34 ¶ 31. While we agree that the documents sought and received by a requesting party is a factor that a trial court should consider when analyzing a fee request under the statute, the court of appeals’ singular focus on this result unnecessarily restricts a trial court‘s discretion in analyzing a party‘s request for fees and costs. This restriction is contrary to the well-established precedent of giving a trial court broad discretion to award or deny attorney fees and costs. Ford, 228 Ariz. at 548-49 ¶ 12. This deferential standard is necessary and appropriate in view of the court‘s superior understanding of the issues involved in the litigation and the desirability of avoiding frequent appellate review of what is essentially a factual issue. See Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 437 (1983).
¶16 The following example illustrates the utility in providing a trial court with flexibility in determining whether to award fees and costs. Assume a party brings an action under
¶17 The holding in ACLU-AZ II, however, would preclude a trial court from finding that the requesting party in this instance “substantially prevailed” because it did not obtain any documents. The court of appeals’ principal focus on a party‘s receipt of the requested documents in ACLU-AZ II, while a necessary part of the trial court‘s analysis, falls short of the comprehensive examination that a court should employ when considering whether a party “substantially prevailed” under
II.
¶18 Next, ACLU-AZ argues that ACLU-AZ II improperly narrowed the trial court‘s authority to award fees and costs under
¶19 Section 39-121.02 provides in relevant part:
A. Any person who has requested to examine or copy public records pursuant to this article, and who has been denied access to or the right to copy such records, may appeal the denial through a special action in the superior court, pursuant to the rules of procedure for
special actions against the officer or public body.
B. The court may award attorney fees and other legal costs that are reasonably incurred in any action under this article if the person seeking public records has substantially prevailed.
The court of appeals held that the “action” in
¶20 As previously indicated, a statute‘s plain language is the best indicator of legislative intent, Premier Physicians Grp., PLLC v. Navarro, 240 Ariz. 193, 195 ¶ 9 (2016), and “when the legislature has specifically included a term in some places within a statute and excluded it in other places, courts will not read that term into the sections from which it was excluded,” Arpaio v. Citizen Publ‘g Co., 221 Ariz. 130, 133 ¶ 9 (App. 2008) (quoting State v. Gonzales, 206 Ariz. 469, 471 ¶ 11 (App. 2003)).
¶21 Although
¶22 In fact, a variety of “actions” can be brought under this article that do not require the filing of a special action. For example, a requesting party could bring an action for declaratory or injunctive relief under the public records statutes and still recover attorney fees and legal costs if it prevails. See Arpaio, 221 Ariz. at 134 ¶ 14-15 (holding that Arpaio was liable for Citizen Publishing‘s attorney fees under
¶23 The court of appeals’ limitation regarding the applicability of
III.
¶24 ACLU-AZ argues that, because the court of appeals declared that the CHILDS database is itself a public record and also because DCS failed to promptly respond to the request for post-litigation documents, the trial court acted within its discretion to award ACLU-AZ attorney fees and costs. See ACLU-AZ I, 240 Ariz. at 147 ¶ 12; ACLU-AZ II, 248 Ariz. at 31 ¶ 19. DCS asserts that, because it did not contest that the information in CHILDS was a public record and ACLU-AZ did not receive more documents based on the court of appeals’ declaration, ACLU-AZ cannot be considered a substantially prevailing party. Both parties’ positions erroneously lie in the disputed status of CHILDS.
¶25 That CHILDS was declared a public record by the court in ACLU-AZ I is
¶26 On remand, the trial court must examine all of the contested requests made by ACLU-AZ and determine whether it was more successful than not in obtaining the records that were contested by DCS before ACLU-AZ filed its special action. The trial court should look at ACLU-AZ‘s overall success in the litigation, not simply the number of documents produced compared to the number of documents requested.
¶27 ACLU-AZ requests attorney fees and costs pursuant to
CONCLUSION
¶28 Section 39-121.02 gives the trial court discretion to determine when a party has “substantially prevailed” and can be awarded attorney fees and costs. Because we conclude that a party has “substantially prevailed” if, after a comprehensive examination by the trial court, it was more successful than not in obtaining the requested records, defeating the government‘s denial of access to public records, or securing other relief concerning issues that were contested before litigation was initiated, we vacate paragraphs 20-34 of the court of appeals’ opinion and remand to the trial court to consider ACLU-AZ‘s request for attorney fees and legal costs regarding the late-produced records under the standard set forth in this Opinion.