By Rachel Disario, CSBA Deputy General Counsel
On Jan. 15, the California Supreme Court issued a decision in City of Gilroy v. Superior Court of Santa Clara County, in which it clarified two issues related to the California Public Records Act (CPRA). First, the court found that the CPRA allows for declaratory relief, even in some circumstances when it is uncontested that there are “no existing nonexempt records to disclose.” And second, the court determined that public agencies do not have an independent obligation under the CPRA to retain records that the agency determines are exempt from disclosure.
This case arises from two CPRA requests made in 2018 and 2019 by the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley for various City of Gilroy records, including body camera footage, maintained by the Gilroy Police Department (GPD). The city initially disclosed some of the requested records, but withheld others related to GPD’s bodycam footage, claiming that they were exempt from disclosure. Following the Law Foundation’s threat of litigation, the city placed a preservation hold on existing footage and informed the Law Foundation that footage recorded prior to early 2018 had already been destroyed in accordance with the city’s record retention policy.
Despite the parties agreeing that all nonexempt records had eventually been disclosed, the trial court granted partial declaratory relief to the Law Foundation, finding the city conducted an inadequate search, failed to review records before claiming they were exempt, and the response was untimely. The court also found that the CPRA was not a record retention statute, and the city was not required to retain the footage for three years after the foundation’s request. On appeal, the Court of Appeal overturned the lower court’s decision regarding the availability of declaratory relief but upheld the finding that the CPRA is not a record retention statute.
On the issue of propriety of declarative relief under the circumstance, the Supreme Court disagreed, concluding that “at a minimum, declaratory relief is appropriate in situations in which an agency is reasonably likely to repeat past conduct that allegedly violates the CPRA in response to future records requests.” The court determined that two of the trial court’s declarations that concerned the city’s responses to CPRA requests were appropriate because they addressed behavior the court found was likely to recur. Additionally, after reviewing the language and legislative history of the CPRA, the court did agree that the CPRA does not impose an independent record retention requirement on agencies. Thus, per this decision, even if a local educational agency has disclosed all nonexempt records, a court could still make findings as to whether the agency’s practices comply with the CPRA and order the LEA to make changes to their CPRA practices and/or policies. However, also based on this decision, LEAs are not required to maintain exempt records beyond their normal retention period solely because they were requested under the CPRA.
