Fee Award in Judicial Watch’s Georgia Open Records Act Lawsuit Against Fani Willis
From Friday’s decision by Fulton County (Ga.) Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney in Judicial Watch v. Willis:
Plaintiff submitted an Open Records Act (ORA) request to Defendant on 22 August 2023 by way of Fulton County’s ORA on-line “portal.” That same day, Plaintiff received confirmation that its request had been delivered and would be channeled to the “appropriate department” (presumably the District Attorney’s Office). The following day, the County’s Open Records Custodian sent Plaintiff an e- mail confirming that the District Attorney’s Office had received the inquiry and asking Plaintiff to “simplify” its ORA request. Literally five minutes later, before any simplification had occurred, Plaintiff received a second e-mail from the Records Custodian: “After carefully reviewing your request. (sic) We do not have the responsive records.”
This response was perplexing and eventually suspicious to Plaintiff, given that Plaintiff subsequently uncovered through own effort at least one document that should have been in the District Attorney’s Office’s possession that was patently responsive to the request. This discovery prompted the current litigation, filed in March 2024, seeking an order directing Defendant to comply with the ORA and provide all responsive records. During the pendency of the litigation, Defendant thrice more denied the existence of any responsive records, once in a request for admission and twice via answers to interrogatories. Every time: we have searched and there is nothing.
Defendant ultimately defaulted and this Court entered an Order on 2 December 2024 directing Defendant “to conduct a diligent search of her records for responsive materials” and to provide any respon
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