In 2023, a FOIA requester
mailed over 40 letters to the Illinois Secretary of State (ILSOS) seeking
copies of various records. After ILSOS did not respond to his requests, the
requester sued ILSOS alleging various FOIA violations. ILSOS filed a motion to
dismiss the complaint, supported by the affidavit of its FOIA Officer, because
(1) the requester failed to comply with ILSOS’s FOIA regulations, because the
requests were improperly addressed—not directed to the designated address for
ILSOS’s FOIA officer as identified on its forms, and (2) because ILSOS never
received the FOIA requests, it did not violate FOIA. The circuit court ruled in favor of ILSOS, and the requester appealed. On appeal, the Fifth District Court of Appeals upheld the circuit
court’s ruling in favor of ILSOS. Lenard
v. Office of the Illinois Secretary of State.
The appellate court
determined that Section 3(h) of FOIA expressly authorizes public bodies to
establish FOIA regulations governing the time, place, and person from whom
records may be requested. In this case, because the requester failed to comply
with ILSOS’s FOIA regulations for submitting FOIA requests by sending his requests to the wrong address rather than the address
prescribed by ILSOS in its forms, the appellate court determined that ILSOS
never received his requests within the meaning of FOIA, and ILSOS’s duty to
respond was never triggered. Furthermore, because the requester’s FOIA requests
were improperly submitted to ILSOS, the requester was never denied access to
public records, and ILSOS did not improperly deny the requester access to
records in violation of FOIA.
Post Authored by Eugene Bolotnikov, Ancel Glink