Legal bill in records lawsuit $153,758

A $153,758.66 legal bill was presented by the plaintiffs in a records lawsuit against four Douglas County School Board trustees and the school district.

Filed on Oct. 24, the motion responded to a court order issued after a Sept. 17-18 hearing on the matter.

“This matter has never been about ‘accruing attorney’s fees and making trustees look bad,’” Attorney Rich McGuffin wrote in his response. “Petitioners sole focus has been protecting the Douglas County School District, its students and those within its employ by ensuring discussions, work and decisions of the board of trustees are done publicly through lawful public records requests.”

According to the motion, the Douglas County School District produced 466 pages of records in August.

The four trustees, David Burns, Susan Jansen, Katherine Dickerson and Doug Englekirk produced 6,136 pages of documents on July 24, 2024, a full year after they were requested in July 2023.

“Respondents spent seven months trying to convince petitioners and this court that documents responsive to petitioners May 2023 and July 2023 public records requests did not exist, despite significant evidence to the contrary,” McGuffin wrote. “Respondents persisted with this narrative following the deposition of Mr. (Keith) Lewis, when both petitioners and respondents were provided with copies of documents that until that time, according to respondent, did not exist.”

According to the pleading in the case, the more than 6,000 pages produced by the trustees accounted for 93 percent of the total.

“But for the action filed by petitioners, respondent trustees would not have produced in petitioners’ May 2023 and July 2023 public records request,” McGuffin argued. “Respondent trustees are responsible for 93 percent of the document pages produced, while respondent DCSD is responsible for 7 percent. It is important to note that respondent trustees ‘made no effort to synthesize the records to break down how many records came from each trustee’s personal devices.’”

While suggesting the bill be split up based on the number of pages the parties produced, McGuffin acknowledged that’s up to the judge to determine.

It will be Nov. 7 before attorneys for the trustees and the district are required to respond to McGuffin’s filing. The plaintiffs would have seven days to respond before District Judge Tom Gregory rules on the issue.

The lawsuit was filed Aug. 7, 2023, after plaintiffs concluded that their May and July records requests would not be complied with, McGuffin said.

“Petitioners believe Respondent trustees hired The Joey Gilbert Law Firm, in part, to refuse petitioners’ public records request,” McGuffin said. “Petitioners sought court intervention rather than engage in the anticipated exercise in futility that would have been making repeated demands that respondents produce documents responsive to their public records requests only to be told such documents did not exist, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”