Confidentiality question

[dawgoneyall]

Rare....I go with the Yankee on this.

Unless the NY means North Yazoo?

[lawdawg]

I'm enjoying the first legal throwdown I've encountered at ED. I hope there are more in the weeks to come on the same basic topic.

From a layman's point of view, don't you suppose the CL's attorney would avoid filing a frivolous FOIA-related lawsuit? You would have to assume they have some experience with this sort of thing...

Edited to add: I'm guessing Lawdawg's legal training was acquired in Lafayette County in the not too distant past..

Thankfully, I didn't have to settle for TLSUN... And let me also say that I have more than a fair amount of experience with laws relating to public entities.

I guarantee you that if the CL attorney has filed a dispute, they didn't use the term "FOIA". in any event, the docs (or at least the important NOA) will surely be released to the public (with redactions, of course) before the dispute is resolved if fought all the way through.

[NYDawg]

If you are going to try to be the expert on a subject, you should at least call it what it is. And it is not FOIA. It's a common mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. And one typically made by those who don't know what they're talking about.

Obviously, I'm not asking if you hired counsel to write an opinion. That's ridiculous. But, you see, under Mississippi's Public Records Act, disputes are decided by the Ethics Commission. Their decisions are called "ethics opinions". You can even search them for free online. Again, if you want to be the expert, you should know that. Not trying to be snarky - just asking if you had a precedential basis for your opinion. Thanks for clarifying that you do not. I haven't seen an opinion regarding agents of public entities.

There's no real argument here. I just hate it when people say "they're using their attorneys to hide docs from the NCAA under attorney-client privilege", because that's wholly incorrect. I also hate it when people say "thats a Mississippi government body, they can't avoid FOIA!"

I absolutely agree that careful use of the proper references is important in a legal brief. I am not filing a legal brief, writing a legal opinion or otherwise having a discussion in my professional capacity. I'm writing on a message board with a snarling dog logo and an advertisement for an ESPN "The Zone" show. I get that it's your pet peeve. I have several as well, but making a huge case over them would be bad form.

I expressed an opinion on this message board. For whatever reason, you did not like that opinion and chose to question my understanding of how all of this works. I believe I have clarified all of that sufficiently, including that I have not dealt with this issue in Mississippi. I have never suggested that I am an "expert" on MS public records practice notwithstanding my experience with related issues elsewhere. How that makes my opinion invalid is beyond me. All of this lecturing about process is, at best, a distraction from the fact that you have yet to defend your interpretation of the statute.

So where, exactly, do you think my reading of 25-61-3(a) or examination of your analysis are incorrect? All I see is more snarky comments about Ethics Opinions (in my practice, we were careful to distinguish ordinary "ethics opinions" and "[Agency] Opinions" to avoid confusion, but I appreciate that this is not how it's done everywhere) and how I haven't produced any, as if that's somehow conclusive. I doubt there are ethics opinions that say you can't take a dump on a public records request and send it back as your answer, but you don't need an ethics opinion to see that would be a violation of the statute. And no, based on the statutory language and the manner in which similar language has been interpreted elsewhere, I do not see the argument re: outside counsel as colorable. I suspect that's the reason you haven't seen an Ethics Opinion on the issue either...to use your words, "[t]here's no real argument here." If you happen across one that suggests otherwise, I'd love to see it.

As for OM, I have no idea if they're relying on the "outside counsel" angle at all. I cannot imagine that they are going to try to claim the NoA is subject to work product or attorney-client privilege for the reasons I noted earlier (TL;DR - it strikes me as a silly position). Nor am I merely saying that OM is a government body that "can't avoid FOIA." To the contrary, I acknowledged that there are several carve-outs for certain types of entities, documents, and information within documents. To this point, however, I have yet to see any colorable argument that the NoA falls within any of these carve-outs.

[NYDawg]

Rare....I go with the Yankee on this.

Unless the NY means North Yazoo?

I live and work in New York, but I doubt anyone here would consider me a yankee...