The State appeals dismissal of open meetings lawsuit against LR5 school board
The State Media Co. has appealed the dismissal of its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Lexington-Richland 5 school district, which was dismissed after a hearing was not scheduled within a required time frame.
The suit was dismissed last year by Circuit Court Judge Alison Lee.
Under state law, in a Freedom of Information complaint, “a hearing must be held within ten days of the service on all parties and a scheduling order to conclude the action must be held within six months,” Lee wrote in a short court order. “In this current matter, no hearing was held within the allotted timeframe. Therefore, the Motion to Dismiss is dispositive and the court need not determine the merits of the Summary Judgment claims.”
State law says that after a request for declaratory judgment or injunctive relief is requested in an FOIA case, “the chief administrative judge of the circuit court must schedule an initial hearing within ten days of the service on all parties.”
The State filed a motion for summary judgment Feb. 11.
In The State’s appeal, which was filed Monday, it argues in part that because it is the chief administrative judge’s responsibility to set the required hearing, the lawsuit should not have been dismissed over a technicality that wasn’t the plaintiff’s fault.
“Of course, no litigant has the power or ability to ensure that a hearing be scheduled as required,” The State’s attorneys, Thomas William McGee and Joel Collins, wrote in the motion for appeal. A “litigant will be forced to call the courts repeatedly and insist that a hearing be immediately scheduled. What is a litigant to do if it cannot get the hearing scheduled in a timely manner? Show up to the courthouse and demand a hearing? Seek a writ from the South Carolina Supreme Court?”
The appeal says that if the intent of Lee’s order is to adopt a rule that the litigant must try to schedule a hearing within 10 days, then the order should be amended to specify that.
”While such an interpretation is still contrary to the plain and unambiguous text of the statute, it will at least help alleviate the absurd result created by the Order in which a litigant can be thrown out of court for something completely out of his or her control,” the appeal says.
The appeal also states that the suit’s dismissal runs contrary to the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act, which the General Assembly has said exists for citizens “to learn and report fully the activities of their public officials at a minimum cost or delay to the persons seeking access to public documents or meetings.”
The suit’s dismissal “accomplishes exactly the opposite result by throwing the Plaintiff out of court based on a tenuous ruling on a procedural technicality,” the appeal adds.
An editor of The State newspaper, Paul Osmundson, filed the suit against the district in August 2021, alleging the district violated the state’s Freedom of Information law in its approval of a settlement for a former superintendent who resigned her post.
Lexington-Richland 5’s former superintendent, Christina Melton, received $226,368 in a settlement from the district after she resigned her position in August 2021.
The State Media Co.’s lawsuit alleges the school board approved that settlement illegally behind closed doors. The suit also sought to require that meetings of school board officers be open to the public.
The school district argued the agreement with Melton was reached in accordance with “an established practice in our state” for handling personnel matters and that board officers’ meetings did not constitute a public body subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
After The State filed its lawsuit, the Lexington-Richland 5 school board approved the settlement agreement with Melton in a public vote, nearly two months after the superintendent announced her resignation. The district also began announcing its board officers’ meetings ahead of time and opening portions of them to the public.
School district attorney Ward Bradley argued in court that those moves negated the need for the lawsuit to continue.
This story was originally published October 31, 2022 at 4:50 PM.
