Matter of Agata Boxe v State University of New York et al.
Categories
Attorneys and Parties
Brief Summary
Public-records access in higher education under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) (Public Officers Law art 6 [New York's open-records statute]).
Supreme Court granted respondents' pre-answer motion to dismiss the CPLR article 78 petition and denied petitioner's request for counsel fees, accepting respondents' position that two email-request categories were too broad and not reasonably described and rejecting the remaining challenges.
The Appellate Division reversed the dismissal of the part of the petition seeking production of category 2 of FOIL request No. 3 and category 2 of FOIL request No. 4, and also reversed the denial of counsel fees as premature.
The two disputed requests reasonably described the records by identifying the specific employees and date range, satisfying Public Officers Law § 89 (3) (a) [requires records sought to be reasonably described and obligates agencies to retrieve electronically stored records with reasonable effort]. The existing motion papers did not establish that respondents could not retrieve the emails with reasonable effort, so respondents must answer and submit evidence on burden and retrievability.
Background
Between February and May 2024, petitioner submitted five Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests to Farmingdale State College for several categories of records, including emails between identified employees and emails referencing petitioner. The records access officer acknowledged the requests, produced one category, and stated that most remaining records would require months for review, redaction, and rolling production. Petitioner administratively challenged those delays as unreasonable. The records access officer also expressly denied two categories: all emails exchanged between Charles Adair and Tom Ward from September 1, 2023 to February 1, 2024, and all emails exchanged between Charles Adair and Jeremy Norris during the same period. The agency said those requests were voluminous and insufficiently specific. On administrative appeal, the State University of New York FOIL Appeals Unit upheld both the extension periods and the two denials. Petitioner then brought a CPLR article 78 proceeding seeking disclosure and counsel fees.
Lower Court Decision
Supreme Court dismissed the petition on respondents' pre-answer motion and denied counsel fees. In effect, the lower court allowed dismissal of the claims challenging the two actual denials and did not grant relief on petitioner's claims that the prolonged production schedules were constructive denials.
Appellate Division Reversal
The Appellate Division held that the claims attacking the timing of respondents' production were either moot because records had since been disclosed or unpreserved for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. But it ruled that the two denied email requests were reasonably described because they named the senders/recipients and gave a defined date range. The court further held that whether compliance would require unreasonable effort under Public Officers Law § 89 (3) (a) could not be resolved on the sparse pre-answer motion record. It therefore reinstated the part of the petition seeking those two categories of emails, denied dismissal to that extent under CPLR 7804 (f) [governs motions to dismiss in article 78 proceedings], and held that the denial of counsel fees was premature while the merits remained unresolved.
Legal Significance
The decision reinforces that a FOIL request for emails can be sufficiently specific even without subject-matter limitations if it identifies particular custodians and a concrete date range. It also emphasizes that an agency seeking to resist disclosure of electronically stored records must do more than label a request voluminous or burdensome; it bears an evidentiary burden to show it cannot retrieve the records with reasonable effort. The ruling follows Matter of Wagner v New York City Dept. of Educ. in treating reasonable retrieval of electronic records as a fact-specific issue not suitable for dismissal on conclusory motion papers.
In New York FOIL litigation, agencies cannot defeat an email request merely by calling it broad or voluminous when the request identifies the people involved and the dates. If the agency claims retrieval is unduly burdensome, it must prove that with evidence; otherwise, dismissal at the pleading stage is improper.