An appeals court has upheld an April 2023 lower court ruling finding that Bucks County acted in “bad faith” when it refused to turn over documents to a resident who’d won access in open records cases.
The case dates back to the COVID-19 pandemic when Megan Brock, a mother with school-age children, filed right-to-know requests seeking communications about the Bucks County Health Department’s pandemic guidance.
Specifically, Brock was seeking emails from August 2021, when the county suddenly overrode COVID-19 guidance issued by its own Health Department Director, Dr. David Damsker, who said the science indicated more parent-friendly, less-restrictive policies. Instead, Bucks County bureaucrats replaced Damsker’s rules with stricter state guidelines for masking, quarantines, and vaccinations.
Judge Denise Bowman ruled in favor of Brock and ordered the county to turn over some of the requested records and to pay her lawyers $3,000.
Bowman said the sanctions were “warranted given the county’s failure to produce documents which clearly existed, fell within the (Right-to-Know Law) requests at issue, and were not protected from disclosure by any exemption under the RTKL.” The county turned over those pages that the court deemed open records.
But the deep-pocketed county then appealed the sanctions to the Commonwealth Court, where it lost again.
The Commonwealth Court opinion, written by Judge Matthew S. Wolf, held that county officials were incorrect in withholding certain documents that they were required to turn over. And that Judge Bowman was right when she fined them.
“The fact that the county justifiably withheld some records is irrelevant to the trial court’s finding that the county also failed to turn over some documents as required by the RTKL and not protected from disclosure by any exemption under the RTKL,” Wolf wrote.
“The trial court’s finding of bad faith by the county employed the correct legal standard and is supported by substantial evidence of record. Additionally, the trial court had no obligation to supplement the record after the county had an opportunity but failed to do so before the OOR. Discerning no legal error or abuse of discretion, we affirm the trial court’s orders,” Wolf concluded.
James O’Malley, a spokesman for Bucks County, did not respond to a request to comment on Thursday.
“This ruling confirms that Bucks County egregiously targeted my civil rights by wrongfully withholding public records,” said Brock, who was represented by local attorney Chadwick Schnee. “This was an attempt to bully me and withhold my civil rights, and I’m exceedingly thankful to Judicial Watch for their hard work in protecting my rights and the rights of everyone in Bucks County.”
“I’m grateful for the precedent this sets for all Pennsylvanians who have the right to transparency,” Brock added.