Prevent FOIA Litigation with Proactive Strategies

When you shortchange your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) processes on the frontend, you can find yourself roiled in costly legal fees and public fallout on the backend.

Take, for example, the staffer for the Richmond City Council in Virginia who tried to charge more than $200 for the release of a single government email.

When a city councilman caught wind of the incident, he located the requested email himself after five seconds of searching his Outlook inbox. He has since publicly called for his city’s government to audit and improve its FOIA compliance workflows.

In California, San Diego racked up more than $240,000 in legal fees and court costs associated with dozens of lawsuits filed against the city for its failure to comply with the state’s Public Records Act. In many instances, the lawsuits called out the city for its unjustified exemptions and wrongful denials that requested documents existed, when in fact they did.

In Washington DC, the district’s Metropolitan Police Department fell under scrutiny for attempting to limit public access to information that would have painted the police department in an unfavorable light. A February 2024 lawsuit alleged that former DC Police Chief Peter Newsham instituted a watchlist of certain people for additional scrutiny, unnecessary delays, and immediate denials should they submit public records requests.

Not even student newspapers are safe from FOIA mishandlings. In the wake of former Michigan State University and Olympic doctor Larry Nassar’s sexual abuse having been revealed in 2016, the university’s student newspaper, The State News, filed a lawsuit alleging the university was redacting names of university employees who essentially enabled or hidden Nassar’s misconduct through an abuse of power.

Unfortunately, these examples are microcosms of the FOIA-related legal battles unfolding on a larger scale.

The takeaway: Being accused of mishandling public records requests can land your agency in hot water online, across the media, and in the courtroom.

Whether it’s the mere perception of inappropriately withholding public records or bad actors hiding public records intentionally, an agency can easily find itself embroiled in courtroom battles that cost money, time, and reputation.

Federal agencies are not exempt either. Mandatory annual DOJ reports reveal backlogs and gaps in the FOIA process that can paint agencies in an unfavorable light.

But these costly courtroom battles in the public eye are avoidable. Sidestep the potential for hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and fees and achieve prompt and satisfactory FOIA responses with FOIAXpress by OPEXUS.

How FOIAXpress helps your agency avoid costly financial and reputational fallout related to publics records requests

FOIAXpress provides a single place to manage information requests, so your FOIA workflow is streamlined, transparency is maintained, and compliance is ensured.

An end-to-end FOIA case management solution, FOIAXpress reduces complexity and simplifies reporting, enabling your agency to respond to requests faster and with greater accuracy, while demonstrating compliance via automated report generation. Comprehensive dashboards, and in-depth reporting provide supervisor insight into request status – making sure requests aren’t lost, neglected or mismanaged.

Its other benefits include:

• FedRAMP and StateRAMP-certified hosting encryption standards and built-in 508 compliance
• Efficient redaction, faster response times, and significant backlog reduction
• Mandated and desired integrations, such as pay.gov, login.gov, ID.me, and FOIA.gov, out of the box
• Increased scalability and security

Book a FOIAXpress demo today and see firsthand how you can improve your FOIA processes — and avoid the ramifications of mishandling public records requests.