City of Carrollton v. The Info. Age, Inc.

On September 9, 2009, The Information Age, Inc. submitted a request to the City of Carrollton to inspect 13 categories of documents pursuant to what is commonly known as the Georgia Open Records Act.1 The City made records available under three of the requests, responded that it had no records responsive to six of the requests, and responded that it found the remaining four requests to be “vague” and “overly broad and unduly burdensome.” After the City refused to provide access to public records in response to the four allegedly improper requests, The Information Age filed a complaint with the Superior Court of Carroll County. Following a hearing, the trial court i ordered the City to make documents responsive to the four requests available to The Information Age, with The Information Age bearing the costs of production as provided by the Open Records Act, and ii awarded $1,750 in attorney fees to The Information Age based on the City’s violation of the Open Records Act without substantial justification. The City appeals, but we find no error and affirm.

A trial court is vested with discretion in determining whether to allow or prohibit inspection of documents under the Open Records Act, and we will review a trial court’s decision in that regard for an abuse of discretion.2 Similarly, the decision to award attorney fees under the Open Records Act is reviewed for an abuse of discretion.3 Finally, a trial court’s factual findings shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous, and we will construe the evidence to support the trial court’s judgment.4