*1 Illinois Official Reports
Appellate Court
Kalven v. City of Chicago
,
Appellate Court JAMIE KALVEN, Plaintiff-Appellant and Cross-Appellee, v. THE CITY OF CHICAGO and THE CHICAGO POLICE DEPART- Caption
MENT, Defendants-Appellees and Cross-Appellants. First District, First Division District & No.
Docket Nos. 1-12-1846, 1-12-1917 cons. Filed March 10, 2014
Held In an action under the Freedom of Information Act seeking documents maintained by defendant police department related to complaints of ( Note: This syllabus police misconduct, the appellate court found that the documents constitutes no part of the listing the police officers with the most complaints and referred to as opinion of the court but has been prepared by the repeater lists and the documents related to completed investigations Reporter of Decisions into allegations of misconduct against five officers and called for the convenience of complaint register files were subject to disclosure; therefore, the trial the reader. ) court’s entry of summary judgment for plaintiff as to the repeater lists
was affirmed and the entry of summary judgment for defendant as to the complaint register files was reversed, but the cause was remanded to allow the trial court to resolve defendants’ claim that some portions of the complaint register files should be redacted pursuant to the deliberative process exemption and to revisit the denial of plaintiff’s request for attorney fees in view of the reversal of the judgment for defendants on the issue of the complaint register files.
Decision Under Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County, No. 09-CH-51396; the Hon. Neil H. Cohen, Judge, presiding. Review Affirmed in part and reversed in part; cause remanded with directions.
Judgment *2 Counsel on Craig Benson Futterman, F. Italia Patti, and Saul D. Cohen, all of Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, of Chicago, for appellant. Appeal
Stephen R. Patton, Corporation Counsel, of Chicago (Benna Ruth Solomon, Myriam Zreczny Kasper, and Justin A. Houppert, Assistant Corporation Counsel, of counsel), for appellees. PRESIDING JUSTICE CONNORS delivered the judgment of the
Panel
court, with opinion.
Justice Cunningham concurred in the judgment and opinion. Justice Delort specially concurred in the judgment, with opinion. OPINION Plaintiff Jamie Kalven filed suit against defendants Chicago police department (CPD) and
City of Chicago pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (5 ILCS 140/1 et seq. (West 2010)), seeking the disclosure of certain documents related to complaints of police misconduct. Plaintiff and defendants filed cross-motions for summary judgment, and the circuit court granted and denied both motions in part. Plaintiff now appeals from the court’s ruling that certain documents are exempt from FOIA disclosure and from the denial of attorney fees. Defendants appeal from the court’s ruling that certain lists are not exempt from FOIA disclosure. We affirm in part and reverse in part and remand for further proceedings. On November 16, 2009, plaintiff submitted FOIA requests to CPD seeking two types of documents: (1) lists of Chicago police officers who amassed the most misconduct complaints (referred to as Repeater Lists or RLs); and (2) complaint register files (referred to as CRs) related to CPD’s completed investigations into allegations of police misconduct against five officers. On December 8, 2009, CPD denied the requests. Plaintiff filed this lawsuit on December 22, 2009, seeking an injunction requiring CPD to produce the documents. The CRs are CPD’s records of investigations into complaints made by citizens against police officers. Upon receiving a citizen complaint, CPD generally creates records cataloging the investigation into any officer’s alleged misconduct. The CR files consist of the complaint itself and documents created during the investigation of the complaint. The RLs, in contrast, were first compiled by defendants as part of Bond v. Utreras, No. 04
C 2617 (N.D. Ill.) (hereinafter, Bond ), and Moore v. City of Chicago, No. 07 C 5908 (N.D. Ill.) (hereinafter, Moore ). The Bond RLs identify police officers who accumulated the most misconduct complaints between 2001 and 2006. The Moore RLs identify officers who received more than five complaints from May 2002 to December 2008, as well as officers who were accused of excessive force more than five times during the same time period. These lists were retrieved from CPD’s complaint register management system and were produced in response to court-ordered civil discovery in each case. The Bond lists were ordered preserved for ease of production in this case by the circuit court after Bond was settled. The Moore lists *3 were produced as court-ordered discovery in that case and then saved to CPD’s computer system.
¶ 5 Plaintiff, a reporter who was in the midst of publishing articles on alleged police
misconduct, sought leave to intervene in
Bond
in order to obtain access to the RLs and CRs at
issue in that case. The federal court granted plaintiff’s motion, but the Seventh Circuit stayed
that order pending defendants’ appeal. See
Bond v. Utreras
,
¶ 6 On November 16, 2009, plaintiff submitted FOIA requests to CPD for the RLs and the CRs
relating to 17 Chicago police officers, including the 5 officers who were defendants in Bond. CPD, however, denied plaintiff’s request. In response to the denial, plaintiff filed this lawsuit against defendants on December 22, 2009. In the circuit court, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. In regard to the
CRs, the court found that they were exempt from disclosure under FOIA because they are “[r]ecords relating to a public body’s adjudication of *** disciplinary cases.” 5 ILCS 140/7(1)(n) (West 2010). Regarding the RLs, the circuit court found that section 7(1)(m), which exempts documents prepared in anticipation of litigation for attorneys representing a public body, did not exempt the RLs from disclosure. See 5 ILCS 140/7(1)(m) (West 2010). The circuit court further found that the RLs were public records subject to disclosure under section 2(c). See 5 ILCS 140/2(c) (West 2010). Finally, the circuit court found that plaintiff, having succeeded on his claim for the RLs but failing on his claim for the CRs, did not substantially prevail in the proceeding as required under section 11(i) and thus was not entitled to attorney fees. See 5 ILCS 140/11(i) (West 2010). Both parties have now appealed. The threshold question that we must resolve is which version of FOIA applies to this case. Plaintiff requested the CRs and RLs from defendant in late 2009 and, after CPD denied the request, plaintiff filed suit on December 22, 2009. While the case was pending in the circuit court, however, an amended version of FOIA went into effect on January 1, 2010. Plaintiff contends that we should apply the 2009 FOIA statute because it was in effect when the FOIA request was denied by defendants. In contrast, defendants argue that we should apply the 2010 version of the statute. FOIA provides that when a person is denied access to inspect or copy any public record by
a public body regarding the affairs of government and the official acts and policies of those who represent the public, that person may file suit in circuit court for injunctive or declaratory relief. See 5 ILCS 140/11(a) (West 2010). The circuit court has the authority to determine whether the records are subject to FOIA and, if so, whether they are exempt from disclosure. See 5 ILCS 140/11(f) (West 2010). Moreover, the circuit court has the authority to order the production of any public records improperly withheld from the person seeking access. See 5 ILCS 140/11(d) (West 2010). Injunctive and declaratory relief are prospective forms of relief because they are concerned
with restraining or requiring future actions rather than remedying past harms. See,
e.g.
,
PHL,
Inc. v. Pullman Bank & Trust Co.
,
FOIA provisions. [1] First, defendants argue that section 7(1)(n) exempts the CRs from disclosure. That section exempts:
“[r]ecords relating to a public body’s adjudication of employee grievances or disciplinary cases; however, this exemption shall not extend to the final outcome of cases in which discipline is imposed.” 5 ILCS 140/7(1)(n) (West 2010). Defendants argue that CRs are “related to” adjudicatory proceedings and that the phrase “related to” must receive a broad interpretation. Defendants further contend that the provision exempts not only the adjudications themselves, but also exempts from disclosure all records that relate to the adjudications. We consider issues of statutory construction de novo . People ex rel. Madigan v. Kinzer
232 Ill. 2d 179, 184-85 (2009). “The fundamental objective of statutory construction is to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the legislature. [Citation.] The best indication of legislative intent is the statutory language given its plain and ordinary meaning. [Citation.] When statutory language is plain and unambiguous, the statute must be applied as written without resort to aids of statutory construction. [Citation.] We may not depart from a statute’s plain language by reading into it exceptions, limitations, or conditions the legislature did not express. [Citation.] Courts should not attempt to read a statute other than in the manner it was written.” Id. There are several problems with defendants’ interpretation of section 7(1)(n). First, the
plain language of the statute demonstrates that only records related to adjudications are exempt
from disclosure. The statute does not define “adjudication,” however, so we may examine the
dictionary to determine its ordinary meaning. See
Poris v. Lake Holiday Property Owners
Ass’n
,
against an officer, those proceedings are a different matter entirely. The CRs are instead part of
an investigatory process that is separate and distinct from disciplinary adjudications. Still, even though the CRs are not themselves adjudicatory, they could be exempt if they
are “related to” an adjudication. Defendants read this provision expansively, arguing that the
CRs are related to adjudications because they can, if substantiated, subject an employee to
disciplinary proceedings. Defendants point out that section 7(1)(n) previously existed as
section 7(1)(u) in a prior version of the statute. In the amended provision, the phrase “related
to” replaced “information concerning.” On its face this does not seem to be a substantive
change, given that there is no real difference between the plain meaning of the phrases
“information concerning” and “relating to.” See, ,
Bloomberg L.P. v. United States Food &
Drug Administration
,
the legislature’s response to our decision in
Gekas v. Williamson
First, the old version of section 7(1)(u) applied to both students and employees, and the amendment merely consolidated education exemptions under a different subsection, and moved the employee-related exemption and changed the language slightly. See Pub. Act 96-542 (eff. Jan. 1, 2010). There is no indication in either the text of the statute or its legislative history that the change was intended to affect the meaning of the section as it related to employees. If the legislature intended to overrule Gekas and exempt CRs from disclosure by adding section 7(1)(n) to FOIA, it chose a very opaque and convoluted method of doing so. For 30 years section 7(1)(u) existed in nearly identical form and was never interpreted to exempt a public body’s investigations into citizen complaints of police misconduct. This is important because the rules of statutory construction also hold that “[w]here the
legislature chooses not to amend a statute after a judicial construction, it will be presumed that
[the legislature] has acquiesced in the court’s statement of the legislative intent.” (Internal
quotation marks omitted.)
Wakulich v. Mraz
,
open governmental records to the light of public scrutiny.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Stern v. Wheaton-Warrenville Community Unit School District 200 , 233 Ill. 2d 396, 405 (2009). It is well settled that “FOIA is to be accorded liberal construction,” and “the statutory exemptions from disclosure must be read narrowly.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id. at 411. Defendants’ interpretation of “relating to” would give section 7(1)(n) an expansive interpretation and render a broad category of public documents immune to public scrutiny. That is contrary to the intent of FOIA. Finally, defendants claim that CRs are the start of the adjudicatory process and that without
them a proper adjudication could never exist. This argument mischaracterizes the nature of CRs. The CRs are created to investigate reports of police misconduct, and any disciplinary adjudication that may take place as a result of the CRs comes later. While information obtained during the investigation may potentially be introduced during adjudication of a disciplinary case, a CR does not initiate that adjudication, nor can CRs themselves be considered disciplinary. Indeed, if a complaint is unsubstantiated, then no disciplinary adjudication ever occurs and that CR necessarily cannot “relate to” an adjudication. This is a further indication that CRs are distinct from disciplinary adjudications and therefore not encompassed by section 7(1)(n). Defendants provide us with a line of cases to support their argument of a broad reading of
the term “relating to,” but these cases do little to buttress their claim. When examined, the
cases are inapposite. For example, in
Goff v. Teachers’ Retirement System
, 305 Ill. App. 3d
190, 195 (1999), the court held the phrases “ ‘relating to,’ ‘arising out of,’ and ‘in connection
with’ are very broad terms.” However, those terms were in the context of a teacher’s
after-school criminal sexual abuse of students that “related to” his position as a teacher in a role
that he exploited to take advantage of his students. See
id.
at 196. The case did not purport to
interpret FOIA. Similarly, defendants cite to
BlueStar Energy Services, Inc. v. Illinois
Commerce Comm’n
, 374 Ill. App. 3d 990 (2007), and
Kopchar v. City of Chicago
, 395 Ill.
App. 3d 762 (2009). These cases did construe FOIA exemptions in a broader way on the facts
of those cases, but they did not analyze the term at hand. Moreover, there are other cases that
interpret “relating to” in a narrow way in a variety of contexts. See,
e.g.
,
Romano v. Municipal
Employees Annuity & Benefit Fund
402 Ill. App. 3d 857 (2010);
Lopez v. Illinois Liquor
Control Comm’n
,
statute, CRs do not constitute an “adjudication” or either an employee grievance or a disciplinary case. Further, the phrase “related to” must be read narrowly, and in the context of FOIA, CRs are not “related to” disciplinary adjudications in a way that might exempt them from disclosure.
*7 ¶ 23 Alternatively, defendants contend that the CR files are exempt under section 7(1)(f) of
FOIA, which exempts from disclosure “[p]reliminary drafts, notes, recommendations, memoranda and other records in which opinions are expressed, or policies or actions are formulated.” 5 ILCS 140/7(1)(f) (West 2010). Defendants argue that CR files generated during preliminary investigations should be exempt in their entirety under section 7(1)(f) because they may contain “recommendations to the Superintendent regarding whether an officer should be disciplined because of his actions.”
¶ 24 Section 7(1)(f) has been found to be “the equivalent of the federal deliberative process
exemption, which applies to predecisional materials used by a public body in its deliberative
process.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
Day v. City of Chicago
,
an entire file on the basis that some portions of it may fall under the deliberative-process exemption. Should defendants wish to claim this exemption for portions of a CR file, that is an issue that can be discussed on remand. The remaining issue is whether the RLs are exempt from disclosure. Initially, we note that
the circuit court found that defendants forfeited their argument that section 7(1)(n) applies to
the RLs. The first appearance of that argument came in defendants’ motion to reconsider the
circuit court’s summary judgment ruling. A party may not raise a new legal or factual
argument in a motion to reconsider. See
North River Insurance Co. v. Grinnell Mutual
Reinsurance Co.
369 Ill. App. 3d 563, 572 (2006). The general rule is that arguments not
raised in the trial court are deemed waived and cannot be argued for the first time on appeal.
See
Western Casualty & Surety Co. v. Brochu
,
7(1)(f) and 7(1)(n) because they are simply summaries of CRs. As we found above, however, CR files are not exempt from disclosure under these sections. The RLs are not exempt from disclosure for the same reasons, and we need not revisit them here. There is one difference between the CRs and the RLs, but it is immaterial. While the CRs
are original documents created in response to citizen complaints, the RLs were retrieved from a CPD database and were compiled for purposes of discovery in an unrelated federal case. Defendants contend that the RLs were therefore not created in the ordinary course of business, *8 and are thus not disclosable because they are not encompassed by FOIA’s definition of “public records.” Defendants’ narrow interpretation of what constitutes a public record is not supported by
the plain language of the statute. FOIA section 2(c) states:
“ ‘Public records’ means all records, reports, forms, writings, letters, memoranda, books, papers, maps, photographs, microfilms, cards, tapes, recordings, electronic data processing records, electronic communications, recorded information and all other documentary materials pertaining to the transaction of public business, regardless of physical form or characteristics, having been prepared by or for, or having been or being used by, received by, in the possession of, or under the control of any public body.” 5 ILCS 140/7(2)(c) (West 2010).
CPD prepared, used, possesses, and controls the RLs. Under any reading of section 2(c), the RLs are subject to FOIA and must be disclosed unless an exemption applies. Defendants alternatively argue that the protective order in federal litigation relieved them
of their duty to disclose the RLs. However, the Seventh Circuit stated expressly in Bond that the protective order did not interfere with the plaintiff’s ability to compel the defendant to disclose the documents. See Bond 585 F.3d at 1076 n.10. The protective order in Bond is similar to that in Moore . Neither protective order has any bearing on defendants’ duty to disclose the RLs pursuant to a FOIA request. Defendants again point us to BlueStar Energy Services , 374 Ill. App. 3d 990, which
defendants contend stands for the proposition that a settlement agreement is not subject to disclosure under FOIA. In that case, the agency had possession of the agreement only because the agency had compelled its production from the regulated entity during regulatory proceedings. The ICC agreed to treat the disclosures as confidential, and we held the documents were exempt from FOIA because ordering their disclosure would have a “chilling effect” on the receipt of similar information in the future. Defendants argue that disclosure of the RLs in this case will similarly have a discouraging effect on government agencies in agreeing to produce documents in future discovery for fear that they will be subject to FOIA later. But defendants’ argument on this point falls apart when BlueStar is read in full: the settlement agreements in BlueStar fell within FOIA’s trade secrets exemption, and the case did not turn squarely on the assurances of confidentiality given in the course of discovery. The case is thus inapposite. In sum, neither the CRs nor the RLs are exempt from disclosure under FOIA. The circuit
court’s order granting summary judgment in favor of plaintiff on the RLs is therefore affirmed,
but its order granting summary judgment in favor of defendants on the CRs is reversed. There
are, however, two outstanding issues that require remand. First, defendants contended at oral
argument that some portions of the CRs are subject to the deliberative-process exemption. If
defendants claim that certain portions of the CRs should be redacted under this exemption and
plaintiff does not agree to the proposed redactions, then the circuit court must resolve the issue
after an
in camera
inspection. Importantly, the burden is on defendants to demonstrate that
portions of the document are exempt under the deliberative-process exemption. See
Watkins
person seeking the right to inspect or receive a copy of a public record substantially prevails in a proceeding under this Section, the court may award such person reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs.” 5 ILCS 140/11(i) (West 2008). The circuit court found that plaintiff did not substantially prevail in his case because he was only successful in obtaining the RLs, and thus the circuit court declined to award attorney fees. In light of our holding here, however, the attorney fee issue is to be revisited on remand. Affirmed in part and reversed in part; cause remanded with directions. JUSTICE DELORT, specially concurring. I join the opinion in full, with the exception of paragraph 10. That portion of the majority
opinion deals with the circumstance when an individual makes a FOIA request when a particular version of FOIA is in place, but the legislature amends the FOIA law before the governmental body fulfills the request. In particular, the defendants here suggest that the new version of FOIA now in place is less generous toward FOIA requestors such as the plaintiff here, and that it allows governmental bodies to release fewer records than they would be required to under the previous version of the law. I would instead find that the plaintiff’s rights to the records vested when he made the request and could not later be rescinded by legislative action. To hold otherwise would encourage governmental bodies to stall FOIA responses until some future time when the legislature might amend the statute in a favorable manner, or to actively lobby for an amendment which shields particular embarrassing records from disclosure. It can be suggested that, even if a legislative amendment allowed certain records to be shielded from public disclosure, civil penalties could still be awarded against the governmental body under section 11(j) (5 ILCS 140/11(j) (West 2010)) for willful and intentional failure to comply with FOIA in the first instance. I believe, however, that only release of the actual records requested would truly fulfill the intent and purpose of FOIA. I further believe that there is hardly a perceptible difference between the old and new versions of FOIA as they apply to this case, and that the change is basically stylistic rather than substantive. Accordingly, I agree with the remainder of the majority’s analysis and with the ultimate result.
Notes
[1] Defendants also raised an argument that the CRs would be exempt under the 2009 FOIA section 7(1)(b)(ii). However, defendants conceded at oral arguments that this would only apply should we decide to apply the 2009 FOIA statute.
[2] Given the lack of controlling Illinois precedent on this issue, there has been a healthy debate in the
federal district courts regarding the meaning of section 7(1)(n) as applied to CRs. See, ,
Martinez v.
City of Chicago
, No. 09 C 5938,
