Jeff Zink, et ux v. City of Mesa

FILED
JUNE 14, 2018
In the Office of the Clerk of Court
WA State Court of Appeals, Division III
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
DIVISION THREE
JEFF ZINK & DONNA ZINK, husband )
and wife, ) No. 34599-8-III
)
Appellants, )
)
v. )
) OPINION PUBLISHED
CITY OF MESA, a Washington municipal ) IN PART
corporation, )
)
Respondent. )
SIDDOWAY, J. — In this, the third appeal of Donna and Jeff Zink’s 2003 Public
Records Act (PRA)1 lawsuit against the city of Mesa, we address whether a trial court
may consider the small size of a jurisdiction and the disproportionate burden on its
taxpayers of a penalty whose amount would be appropriate if imposed on a larger
jurisdiction. Rejecting both parties’ appeals, we hold that the trial court did not err or
abuse its discretion in arriving at a preliminary penalty based on culpability and then
1
Chapter 42.56 RCW.
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reducing the penalty to an amount ($350 per taxpayer) deemed necessary and sufficient
to deter future misconduct.
We also address the application of legislation enacted in 2011 that eliminated a $5
floor on per-day penalties under the PRA and hold that as remedial legislation, it is
retroactive. We affirm.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
In August 2002, the city of Mesa took the position that a building permit granted
to Donna and Jeff Zink for home repairs in April 2000 had expired for suspension or
abandonment. Zink v. City of Mesa, 137 Wn. App. 271, 273-74, 152 P.3d 1044 (2007)
(Zink I). After the city’s board of appeals affirmed the city’s decision, the Zinks filed a
petition under LUPA2 in which they prevailed following city concessions. Id. at 274. In
Zink I, this court rejected the parties’ cross appeals of the trial court’s award of attorney
fees.
In the same month that the city deemed their building permit to have expired, the
Zinks began filing public record requests for documents held by the city. Zink v. City of
Mesa, 140 Wn. App. 328, 333, 166 P.3d 738 (2007) (Zink II). From August 2002 to
January 31, 2005, the requests, by the city’s count, totaled 172. Id. Many, but not all,
related to the city’s decision to terminate the Zinks’ building permit; others related to the
2
The Land Use Petition Act, chapter 36.70C RCW.
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Zinks’ “self-described ‘watchdog type’ role in the City.” Id. In April 2003, the Zinks
filed an action against the city alleging violations of the Public Disclosure Act, former
chapter 42.17 RCW.3 Id. at 334.
At the first show cause hearing conducted in the matter, the trial court made no
findings on specific alleged violations, finding instead in general terms that the city had
“‘more than substantially complied’” with the requests, that it was a “‘practical
impossibility’” for the city to strictly comply given the number of requests and its limited
manpower, and that the Zinks’ requests “‘amounted to unlawful harassment.’” Id. at
335.
In Zink II, this court reversed the trial court and remanded with directions to enter
findings on whether the city strictly complied with the PRA in the instances identified by
the Zinks. Where violations had occurred, this court directed the trial court to award
penalties, costs, and attorney fees. Id. at 349.
After a hearing following remand, the trial court ordered the city to pay the Zinks
a total judgment of about $245,940, consisting of $167,930 in penalties, $5,700 in costs,
3
In 2005, the portion of the Public Disclosure Act that is now the Public Records
Act (PRA) was renamed and recodified as chapter 42.56 RCW. LAWS OF 2005, ch. 274
(effective July 1, 2006). The provisions were not otherwise changed. We use the current
term “PRA” to refer to the public record provisions as codified before and after July 1,
2006.
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and $72,309 in attorney fees. Zink v. City of Mesa, 162 Wn. App. 688, 701, 256 P.3d 384(2011) (Zink III).
The Zinks again appealed to this court and the city again cross appealed. Id.Before the matter was set for argument, however, the Washington Supreme Court
accepted review of Division One’s decision in Yousoufian v. Office of Ron Sims, 137 Wn.
App. 69, 151 P.3d 243 (2007) (Yousoufian II4) on which the trial court in the Zinks’ case
had relied in arriving at its per-day penalty awards. The city’s request for a stay of the
appeal pending the issuance of the Supreme Court’s decision was granted by this court
and was lifted in May 2010 after the Supreme Court issued Yousoufian v. Office of Ron
Sims, 168 Wn.2d 444, 229 P.3d 735 (2010) (Yousoufian III). Zink III, 162 Wn. App. at
702.
In Yousoufian III, the Supreme Court recognized that trial courts would be well
served by guidance on how the high court believed they should exercise their broad
discretion to impose PRA penalties, given the dearth of reported cases. Yousoufian III,
4
We refer to three of the six reported and unreported decisions in Armen
Yousoufian’s lawsuit against the office of Ron Sims. We refer to them as Yousoufian I,
Yousoufian v. Office of King County Exec., 152 Wn.2d 421, 98 P.3d 463 (the 2004
Supreme Court decision), Yousoufian II (the 2007 Court of Appeals decision) and
Yousoufian III, Yousoufian v. Office of Ron Sims, 168 Wn.2d 444, 229 P.3d 735 (the 2010
Supreme Court decision).
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168 Wn.2d at 463. It announced 16 nonexclusive mitigating and aggravating factors trial
courts should use as a guide in determining penalty amounts. Id. at 467-68.5
In the decision in this matter issued after the stay was lifted, dozens of challenges
to the trial court’s calculations of the penalty days for the city’s 33 violations were
resolved. Zink III, at 706-22, 730. Recognizing that the trial court had used a now-
rejected method for calculating the amount of the per-day penalties, however, this court
5
The mitigating factors, which may serve to decrease a penalty, include:
(1) a lack of clarity in the PRA request; (2) the agency’s prompt response or
legitimate follow-up inquiry for clarification; (3) the agency’s good faith,
honest, timely, and strict compliance with all PRA procedural requirements
and exceptions; (4) proper training and supervision of the agency’s
personnel; (5) the reasonableness of any explanation for noncompliance by
the agency; (6) the helpfulness of the agency to the requestor; and (7) the
existence of agency systems to track and retrieve public records.
Yousoufian III, 168 Wn.2d at 467 (footnotes omitted). The aggravating factors, which
may support increasing a penalty, include:
(1) a delayed response by the agency, especially in circumstances making
time of the essence; (2) lack of strict compliance by the agency with all the
PRA procedural requirements and exceptions; (3) lack of proper training
and supervision of the agency’s personnel; (4) unreasonableness of any
explanation for noncompliance by the agency; (5) negligent, reckless,
wanton, bad faith, or intentional noncompliance with the PRA by the
agency; (6) agency dishonesty; (7) the public importance of the issue to
which the request is related, where the importance was foreseeable to the
agency; (8) any actual personal economic loss to the requestor resulting
from the agency’s misconduct, where the loss was foreseeable to the
agency; and (9) a penalty amount necessary to deter future misconduct by
the agency considering the size of the agency and the facts of the case.
Id. at 467-68 (footnotes omitted).
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vacated the penalties and remanded with directions to determine penalty amounts in
accordance with the guidance provided by Yousoufian III. Id. at 705-06, 730.
Four-and-a-half years later, in December 2015, the city filed a motion for partial
summary judgment. Among the relief it requested was a ruling that Substitute House Bill
1899 (SHB 1899), enacted in May 2011, applied retroactively to the penalty phase of the
PRA proceeding. The 2011 legislation removed what had formerly been a $5 floor on
per-day penalties. LAWS OF 2011, ch. 273, § 1 (effective July 22, 2011) amending RCW
42.56.550(4). A new trial court to whom the matter was assigned following remand ruled
that SHB 1899, being remedial, applied retroactively.
The Zinks then filed a motion for assessment of penalties, attorney fees, and costs
against the city, supported by extensive documentation. The parties agreed that since this
court had resolved the number of penalty days in Zink III, all that remained was for the
trial court to set penalty amounts.
The trial court held a three-day hearing in which it used individual worksheets to
assess the Yousoufian factors for each violation, indicating, with respect to each factor,
whether it was “strongly present,” “moderately present,” “not present,” or “ NA [not
applicable].” Clerk’s Papers (CP) at 2437-69 (some capitalization omitted).
A few weeks thereafter, the trial court convened a hearing to deliver an oral ruling.
It provided the parties with copies of its 33 penalty worksheets. The preliminary
penalties identified as appropriate ranged from $1 per day on the low end to $100 per day
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on the high end. Some of the penalties were adjusted for four periods falling between the
start dates established in Zink III and November 7, 2008, the date that findings,
conclusions and an order for the second show cause hearing were entered.6
After identifying a calculation error, it was determined that the total penalty based
on the 33 worksheet amounts and the four calculation periods was $352,955. The trial
court told the parties it was “a little unsettled” by the $352,955 figure and would reserve
a final ruling until the presentment of proposed findings and conclusions. Report of
Proceedings (RP) (May 10, 2016) at 55. It rejected a party’s reference to the court as
having “aimed” for a different range, explaining, “I have not aimed at any number, any
gross number. I anticipated a methodology where I would just apply the factors as
objectively as I could and let the chips fall where they may.” Id. at 54-55. The court
added, “I also told you that my intentions were to then look at that number to see if I was
uncomfortable with it.” Id. at 55. The court told the parties it was going to give thought
to the legal question of whether it had authority to “go back and do a wholesale
6
The “primary period” ran from the start date through June 24, 2003, when the
city’s clerk/treasurer received legal advice from a municipal research agency on PRA
exemptions for names and residential addresses of individuals. The “secondary period”
began thereafter and ran to May 13, 2005, when the original trial court announced its
initial ruling following the first show cause hearing. The “tertiary period” began
thereafter and ran to August 23, 2007, the date on which this court reversed the trial court
and remanded. The “quaternary period” began thereafter and ran to November 7, 2008,
the date the original trial court entered its final order following remand.
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adjustment to the total. And I don’t know the answer to that question.” Id. at 56-57. It
invited the parties to brief the issue in connection with their presentation of proposed
findings of fact and conclusions of law. Id.
The city’s submissions thereafter included a declaration from its clerk/treasurer
identifying the amounts and restrictions on its 2015 and 2016 tax revenues, and its
counsel’s illustration of the impact of the trial court’s preliminary penalty figure, given
the city’s small size and limited resources. Comparing Mesa with another city in Benton
County, the city explained:
If Pasco had treated Ms. Zink the way Mesa treated Ms. Zink, the Court’s
preliminary penalty award of $352,955 might be warranted. But a penalty
of that size would “only” amount to $5 per resident for Pasco, whereas that
same penalty will cost each resident of Mesa $718. If Pasco was penalized
at $718-per-resident, the total penalty would top $49 million. The City of
Mesa suggests that no one would support giving away $49 million of tax
payer dollars based on the statutory violations of a handful of government
employees.
CP at 2899-2900 (footnotes omitted).
At the hearing on entry of the final order, the trial court told the parties it had
concluded that a $175,000.00 penalty was “sufficient to deter future conduct . . . . It is
such an amount that would avoid this windfall to the plaintiffs. It will certainly sting the
city but will not, in my judgment, cripple them.” RP (June 29, 2016) at 59. Its written
findings and conclusions state:
After reaching the preliminary total of $352,954, the Court has considered
whether that amount was appropriate, taking into account Mesa’s small
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size, limited resources, and the deterrent purposes of PRA penalties. Based
on this consideration, the Court finds that the preliminary penalty award
was greater than needed to serve the purposes of PRA penalties and should
be reduced to $175,000.
CP at 2430. The total judgment awarded was $200,746.47: $175,000.00 for PRA
penalties, and $25,746.47 in attorney fees and costs incurred in the prior appeal.
The Zinks appeal and the city cross appeals.
ANALYSIS
The Zinks’ extensive briefing describes each of the city’s 33 public record
violations, but their assignments of error are more limited, requiring us to address only
two legal issues: (1) Does the 2011 legislative amendment eliminating the $5 floor on the
per-day penalty amount apply retroactively, and (2) does a trial court have discretion
under the PRA to globally reduce penalties based on an agency’s size, limited resources,
and the deterrent purposes of PRA penalties. Br. of Appellant at 2.7
7
The Zinks make a third assignment of error to the court’s alleged construction of
the PRA to “allow[ ] a court to set a lower per-day penalty where an agency has
continued to violate the act for a high number of days.” Br. of Appellant at 2. They cite
in support only RP (June 29, 2016) at 24-25, which does not support its characterization
of the court’s reasoning.
In the trial court, the city did advance such a reading of Wade’s Eastside Gun
Shop, Inc. v. Department of Labor & Industry, 185 Wn.2d 270, 291, 372 P.3d 97 (2016),
which we question. See CP at 2831-32 (arguing that one could infer the court’s approval
of reducing a per-day penalty to $0.01 in order to compensate for a long period of
withholding). Cf. Koenig v. City of Des Moines, 158 Wn.2d 173, 188-89, 142 P.3d 162(2006) (citing Yousoufian I, 152 Wn.2d at 437) (holding that the trial court lacks
discretion to reduce the number of penalty days to adjust for a long period of
withholding). But the trial court in this case did not rely on this reasoning for its
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The city raises two issues in its cross appeal: (1) whether the trial court abused its
discretion by imposing a penalty that exceeds 100 percent of the city’s 2015 annual
general fund unrestricted tax revenue and amounts to an averaged cost of approximately
$350 per resident, and (2) whether insufficient evidence supports the trial court’s finding
that a municipal research agency’s memo should have put the city on notice of the
impropriety of some of its document redactions. Br. of Resp’t at 4.
In the published portion of this decision, we address the second issue raised by the
Zinks and the first issue raised by the city: a trial court’s discretion (and perhaps its duty)
to adjust what would be an appropriate penalty amount in a typical case, where that
penalty amount is more than necessary to deter a small jurisdiction or agency, to the point
of being financially crippling. We also address the Zinks’ challenge to the trial court’s
ruling that the 2011 amendment was remedial. We address the remaining issues in the
unpublished portion of the decision.
I. ISSUES ARISING FROM THE TRIAL COURT’S ADJUSTMENT OF ITS TOTAL PENALTY
BASED ON THE SIZE OF THE AGENCY AND THE FACTS OF THE CASE
APPEAL
A. A trial court does not abuse its discretion by treating the ninth “deterrence”
Yousoufian aggravating factor as the most important aggravating factor in
an appropriate case
reduction of the penalty nor does the city seriously defend the reduction of the penalty on
this basis on appeal. Since we do not find it to have been a basis for the penalty
assessment, we do not address it further.
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The PRA mandates an award of “all costs, including reasonable attorney fees” to a
person who prevails against an agency in an action in the courts seeking the right to
inspect or copy a public record or to receive a response to a public record request within a
reasonable amount of time. RCW 42.56.550(4). In addition,
it shall be within the discretion of the court to award such person an amount
not to exceed one hundred dollars for each day that he or she was denied
the right to inspect or copy said public record.
Id. (emphasis added). We review a trial court’s award of penalties under the PRA for an
abuse of discretion. Bricker v. Dep’t of Labor & Indus., 164 Wn. App. 16, 21, 262 P.3d
121 (2011). An abuse of discretion occurs when a decision is manifestly unreasonable or
exercised on untenable grounds or for untenable reasons. Graves v. Emp’t Sec. Dep’t,
144 Wn. App. 302, 309, 182 P.3d 1004 (2008).
Our Supreme Court has stated that the PRA penalty “is intended to ‘discourage
improper denial of access to public records and [encourage] adherence to the goals and
procedures dictated by the statute.’” Yousoufian v. Office of King County Exec., 152
Wn.2d 421, 429-30, 98 P.3d 463 (2004) (Yousoufian I) (alteration in original) (quoting
Hearst Corp. v. Hoppe, 90 Wn.2d 123, 140, 580 P.2d 246 (1978)), quoted in Yousoufian
III, 168 Wn.2d at 461. The PRA’s goals and procedures, as we often repeat, serve as a
“strongly worded mandate for broad disclosure of public records.” Hoppe, 90 Wn.2d at
127.
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In Zink III, this case was remanded so that the trial court could arrive at a penalty
with the guidance provided by Yousoufian III. By employing its worksheet, the trial
court scrupulously considered each of the aggravating and mitigating factors identified in
that decision. But the Supreme Court emphasized in Yousoufian III that the trial court
was not required to weigh each factor equally:
We emphasize that the factors may overlap, are offered only as guidance,
may not apply equally or at all in every case, and are not an exclusive list
of appropriate considerations. Additionally, no one factor should control.
These factors should not infringe upon the considerable discretion of trial
courts to determine PRA penalties.
Yousoufian III, 168 Wn.2d at 468.
The issue raised by the Zinks’ appeal is whether making a global adjustment based
on a jurisdiction’s “small size, limited resources, and the deterrent purposes of PRA
penalties” is improper given the purposes of the PRA, and whether even if it may be
proper in some cases, the trial court abused its discretion by relying on the presence of
those factors to reduce its preliminary penalty figure by half. CP at 2430. The related
issue raised by the city’s cross appeal is whether the trial court abused its discretion by
not reducing its preliminary penalty figure even further.
The issue pits the interest of the Zinks in acquiring a larger, culpability-focused
penalty that the trial court would have imposed on a larger, more typical agency against
the financial burden to the city and its taxpayers.
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The trial court found 3 of the city’s violations to constitute bad faith, found 2 to
have been reckless, and found 18 to have been negligent. With respect to only 10 of the
violations did it find that the fifth fault aggravator (“negligent, reckless, wanton, bad faith
or intentional noncompliance with the PRA” (quoting Yousoufian III, 168 Wn.2d at 468))
was not present to any degree.
As argued by the Zinks, Washington decisions provided for much of the history of
the PRA that “‘[w]hen determining the amount of the penalty to be imposed “the
existence or absence of [an] agency’s bad faith is the principal factor which the trial court
must consider.”’” Yousoufian III, 168 Wn.2d at 460 (quoting Amren v. City of Kalama,
131 Wn.2d 25, 37-38, 929 P.2d 389 (1997) (alteration in original) (quoting Yacobellis v.
City of Bellingham, 64 Wn. App. 295, 303, 825 P.2d 324 (1992), abrogated on other
grounds by Amren, 131 Wn.2d 25)). And in light of the $5 floor for a penalty provided
by former RCW 42.56.550(4) (2005), Washington cases formerly held that a penalty was
mandated whenever a violation was found. As our Supreme Court explained, “If the trial
court refuses to assess any penalty, then it is setting the penalty at less than $5, which is
contrary to the unambiguous language used in [former] RCW 42.17.340(4) [(1992)].”
Yousoufian I, 152 Wn.2d at 433 (citing King County v. Sheehan, 114 Wn. App. 325, 355,
57 P.3d 307 (2002)). In some cases, Yousoufian I being an example, fault was a basis for
remanding if a trial court was deemed to have abused its discretion by not fixing the per
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day penalty at what the appellate court deemed to be a reasonable amount within the
penalty range. See id. at 439.
But in none of those cases was it contended that increasing the per-day penalty
amount by focusing solely on fault would push the total penalty to an amount going well
beyond what was needed to deter future violations, given the size and financial resources
of the jurisdiction or agency.
Since Yousoufian I, Amren, and Yacobellis, legislative amendments have increased
a trial court’s discretion in setting penalties for PRA violations and decisions of our
Supreme Court have explicitly recognized that an agency’s smallness and limited
resources can matter. Yousoufian III, for example, explicitly recognized that the small
size of an agency, in the context of deterrence, justified a smaller per-day penalty. The
court expressed concern in that case that in setting penalties below, the trial court ignored
deterrence. 168 Wn.2d at 462-63. Mr. Yousoufian had sued King County, yet in setting
the penalty on remand at $15 per day, the trial court relied on American Civil Liberties
Union v. Blaine School District No. 503, 95 Wn. App. 106, 975 P.2d 536 (1999), which
Yousoufian III characterizes as having involved “a small school district.” 168 Wn.2d at
463. The court observed, “[H]ere the county is the most populous county in the state.
The penalty needed to deter a small school district and that necessary to deter a large
county may not be the same.” Id. To accomplish the PRA’s purpose, the court said, “the
penalty must be an adequate incentive to induce future compliance.” Id.14
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The court in Yousoufian III also held that only in limited circumstances is
compensating a plaintiff a relevant consideration in setting a penalty. Given the
importance of deterrence, the court held that compensating a plaintiff should be a factor
in increasing a penalty only if an economic loss to the record requester was a foreseeable
result of the agency’s misconduct. Id. at 461-62. Earlier cases had recognized that
because the PRA separately provides for the recovery of attorney fees and costs incurred
by the requester in pursuing a PRA claim, attorney fees are not relevant as an economic
loss. Yacobellis, 64 Wn. App. at 304.
In completing its worksheets in this case, the trial court identified only three
violations in connection with which the Zinks incurred foreseeable personal economic
loss. The record contains no evidence of the amount of the loss, nor did the trial court
make a finding of its amount. The court’s notes suggest that the economic loss arose
from the Zinks’ delayed receipt of three records that would have been important to their
appeal of the termination of their building permit. Their LUPA appeal was ultimately
successful, however, and the trial court in that matter awarded the Zinks their reasonable
attorney fees and costs. Zink I, 137 Wn. App. at 277-78. The Zinks offer no evidence or
argument that the $175,000 adjusted penalty amount failed to take into consideration any
foreseeable economic loss to them.
After Yousoufian III provided guidance and affirmed the trial court’s
“considerable discretion” in determining PRA penalties, 168 Wn.2d at 466, the
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legislature went further by enacting SHB 1899 and eliminating the $5 penalty floor,
thereby also eliminating the requirement that a trial court impose a penalty whenever a
violation is found.8 A trial court’s refusal to impose a penalty remains reviewable for
abuse of discretion.
The city contends it was appropriate for the trial court to fix a penalty that created
no more hardship for it than has been created for agencies committing similar violations.
It asserts that the largest penalty recorded in a reported decision occurred in Wade’s
Eastside Gun Shop, Inc. v. Department of Labor & Industry, 185 Wn.2d 270, 372 P.3d 97(2016), in which the total penalty imposed was $502,827.40, an amount representing 2.1
percent of the Department of Labor and Industries’ general fund budget in 2015. Br. of
Resp’t at 2 n.6. In a table in its opening brief, the city identifies 11 other reported cases
in which an agency’s violations, although egregious in some cases, never exceeded one
8
In committee hearings on SHB 1899, a deputy attorney general explained that
eliminating the $5 minimum would give trial courts the discretion not to impose any
penalty. See Hr’g on SHB 1899 Before the S. Government Operations, Tribal Relations
& Elections Comm., 62d Leg., Reg. Sess., at 75 min., 0 sec. to 75 min., 25 sec. and 76
min., 40 sec. to 76 min., 50 sec. (Wash. Mar. 17, 2011), video recording by TVW,
Washington State’s Public Affairs Network, https://www.tvw .org/watch/?eventID
=2011031165.
The legislative change passed overwhelmingly. SHB 1899 passed the House by a
vote of 96-2 and passed the Senate by a vote of 47-0, with two senators excused. See HB
1899: Bill History, WASH. ST. LEGISLATURE, http://apps2.leg.wa.gov/billsummary
?BillNumber=1899&Year=2011&BillNumber=1899&Year=2011[https://perma.cc
/RFE3-7F2C].
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percent of the agency’s annual general fund budget.9 A search of Washington cases
reveals that most penalty awards against jurisdictions in PRA cases rarely exceed more
than a few dollars per resident on a per capita basis. E.g., Yousoufian III, 168 Wn.2d at
470 (awarding $371,340.00, which amounts to approximately 19 cents per resident);
Cedar Grove Composting, Inc. v. City of Marysville, 188 Wn. App. 695, 707, 354 P.3d
249 (2015) (awarding $143,740.00, which equals approximately $2.39 per resident).10
9
Case Penalty General Fund Budget
Yousoufian v. Office of Ron Sims $371,340 $3.1 billion
Cedar Grove v. City of Marysville $143,740 $42.2 million
Lindell v. City of Mercer Island $90,560 $22.775 million
Bricker v. Dep’t of L&I $29,445 $22.224 million
Adams v. DOC $24,535 $1.6 billion
Wade’s v. Dep’t of L&I $502,827 $22.224 million
West v. Thurston County $16,020 $81 million
Sanders v. State $18,112 $4 million
Kitsap Cy. Pros. Att’ys Guild v. Kitsap Cy. $845 $80 Million
ACLU v. Blaine School District $5,770 $5 million (est.)
Lindberg v. Kitsap County $500(est.) $39 million (est.)
Br. of Resp’t at 43 (footnotes omitted).
10
We take judicial notice of 2010 United States Census published population
figures. See QuickFacts King County, Washington, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU,
https://www.census .gov/quickfacts/fact/table/kingcountywashington/PST045216;
QuickFacts Marysville City, Washington, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, https://www.census.gov
/quickfacts/fact/table /marysvillecitywashington/PST045216.
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Most of the aggravating or mitigating factors identified in Yousoufian III bear on
some operational shortcoming, inattention, or more blameworthy conduct without respect
to the penalty amount sufficient to deter future violations. The Supreme Court’s holding
that the Yousoufian factors “may not apply equally or at all in every case,” 168 Wn.2d at
468, authorizes a trial court in an appropriate case to attribute more weight to the ninth
aggravating factor, which does take deterrence and the size of the agency into
consideration, than to other factors that do not. This is a case in which attributing more
weight to the ninth deterrence factor was reasonable.
“The trial court is in the best position to make an individual, fact-driven inquiry
into what PRA penalties are necessary to achieve the penalty provision’s goal of
deterring unlawful nondisclosure.” Wade’s Eastside Gun Shop, 185 Wn.2d at 280. The
trial court did not err or abuse its discretion in concluding that the penalty amount needed
to deter the city is not the same as that presented in cases involving Washington
jurisdictions or agencies with much larger budgets and resources.
B. The trial court’s two-step method for adjusting a preliminary penalty was
not erroneous or an abuse of discretion
We also find no fault with the process by which the trial court analyzed the 16
Yousoufian factors by evaluating the evidence first as if the action involved a more
typical agency, and only then taking a second look, to arrive at an amount that would
serve as a deterrent and yet not cripple the city. As the judge explained, he was trained as
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Zink v. City of Mesa
an engineer to approach a problem objectively but then “you should always then stand
back and look at your results to make sure that it really makes sense.” RP (May 10,
2016) at 41.
Evidence of the violations and the relevant Yousoufian factors was presented
serially, over three days. The vast majority of the Yousoufian factors could be applied on
the case-by-case evidence and the trial court reasonably wished to make notes of its
assessment as the evidence of each violation was presented. With the benefit of
hindsight, it was probably not possible to assess the ninth deterrence aggravator other
than on a cumulative basis. To butcher an aphorism, as long as one is eying one tree at a
time, one cannot see the forest.
Neither the PRA nor our Supreme Court has dictated any particular method for
applying the mitigating and aggravating factors. The manner in which the trial court
proceeded was transparent and fair. No error or abuse of discretion is shown.
CROSS APPEAL
C. It is not within the authority of this court to impose a cap on PRA penalties,
and the city has not shown that the trial court abused its discretion by not
reducing the penalty further
The city asks us to establish a cap on PRA penalty awards of one percent of an
agency’s annual general fund budget. Should we decline, it asks us to find that the trial
court abused its discretion by refusing to reduce the penalty further.
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The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution places a limitation on the power of states to prescribe penalties for violations
of their laws. St. Louis, Iron Mountain & S. Ry. Co. v. Williams, 251 U.S. 63, 66-67, 40
S. Ct. 71, 64 L. Ed. 139 (1919). The standard articulated in the almost century-old
Williams decision continues to govern review of whether an award of statutory damages
violates due process. E.g., Sony BMG Music Entm’t v. Tenenbaum, 719 F.3d 67, 70-71
(1st Cir. 2013); TXO Prod. Corp. v. All. Res. Corp., 509 U.S. 443, 453-54, 113 S. Ct.
2711, 125 L. Ed. 2d 366 (1993). Williams states that while a limitation imposed by the
Fourteenth Amendment has been fully recognized, it has always been “with the express
or tacit qualification that the states still possess a wide latitude of discretion in the matter,
and that their enactments transcend the limitation only where the penalty prescribed is so
severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportionate to the offense and obviously
unreasonable.” 251 U.S. at 66-67.
In Perez-Farias v. Global Horizons, Inc., 175 Wn.2d 518, 530, 286 P.3d 46(2012), our Supreme Court addressed questions certified by the Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals having to do with a trial court’s discretion when imposing penalties under the
farm labor contractors act, chapter 19.30 RCW. The Supreme Court declined to address
the standard for Fourteenth Amendment review of such penalties, deferring to the Ninth
Circuit, which thereafter applied the Williams standard. Perez-Farias v. Glob. Horizons,
Inc., 499 F. App’x 735, 737 (9th Cir. 2012). In otherwise answering the questions
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certified, however, our Supreme Court rejected an argument that it should impose a cap
on the statutorily-authorized penalty, explaining:
The legislature has declined to create such a cap . . . . We find nothing in
either Washington case law or the statutes to support capping an award of
damages under these circumstances. A contrary holding would be
inconsistent with the overall purposes and aim of the statute. We hold no
state public policy or due process principles require reduction in the total
damages mandated by statute.
Perez-Farias, 175 Wn.2d at 533 (footnote omitted). While Perez-Farias involved a
mandatory penalty while this case involves a discretionary one, the absence of a
decisional or statutory basis for judicially imposing a cap is the same. We violate the
separation of powers doctrine when we assume “tasks that are more properly
accomplished by other branches.” Hale v. Wellpinit Sch. Dist. No. 49, 165 Wn.2d 494,
506, 198 P.3d 1021 (2009) (quoting Carrick v. Locke, 125 Wn.2d 129, 136, 882 P.2d 173(1994) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). If a cap is to be imposed, it
will have to be imposed by the legislature.
Turning to whether the trial court abused its discretion by not imposing a lower
penalty on the city, we note that in the handful of instances exhibiting the most
culpability, the trial court observed that “[t]he mayor injected herself in decisions
regarding the release of records. Records were hidden. Records were destroyed.
Records were lost.” RP (May 10, 2016) at 10. As to some other violations, the trial court
found that the city “failed miserabl[y] to train its staff” and failed to abandon invalid
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claims of exemptions. Id. It found that the city was, in some cases, disparately
uncooperative with the Zinks. Ms. Zink testified in the first show cause hearing that she
believed her and her husband’s “watchdog” activities were the reason for the city’s
resistance to filling her public record requests. Zink II, 140 Wn. App. at 334.
The city does not dispute that its level of culpability supports the preliminary per-
day penalty figures imposed by the court; it argues only for more parity in financial
impact as compared to larger agencies. Deterrence based on an agency’s size is only one
of 16 Yousoufian factors, however. Had the trial court considered only deterrence and
parity, it would have violated the Supreme Court’s directive in Yousoufian III that “no
one factor should control.” 168 Wn.2d at 468.
While we might have imposed a different penalty, we cannot say that the trial
court abused its discretion by refusing to reduce the penalty further.
II. THE PRA’S 2011 AMENDMENT BY SHB 1899 IS REMEDIAL AND OPERATES
RETROACTIVELY
The Zinks argue that the trial court erred in construing SHB 1899 as remedial and
operating retroactively.11 The trial court imposed a penalty for each violation for each
day of the over 20,000-day penalty period, but it did rely on the retroactive application of
11
The Zinks also make a handful of arguments that SHB 1899 cannot operate
retroactively for other reasons. We reject all of the arguments. Given the criteria for
publication, we will reverse the order in which we would ordinarily address those
arguments and relegate them to the unpublished portion of the decision. See RAP
12.3(d).
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the 2011 legislation to impose a preliminary penalty of $1 per day for some violations
and some periods. Whether a statute applies retroactively is a question of law that this
court reviews de novo. State v. Schenck, 169 Wn. App. 633, 642, 281 P.3d 321 (2012).
Generally, statutory amendments are presumed to operate prospectively and not
retroactively. Hale, 165 Wn.2d at 507-08. The presumption against retroactivity is
overcome when the legislature explicitly provides for retroactive application, when an
amendment is curative in the sense of “clarif[ying] or mak[ing] a technical correction to
an ambiguous statute,” or when the enactment is remedial. In re Pers. Restraint of Flint,
174 Wn.2d 539, 546, 277 P.3d 657 (2012). Where “a statute is remedial and its remedial
purpose is furthered by retroactive application, the presumption favoring prospective
application is reversed.” Haddenham v. State, 87 Wn.2d 145, 148, 550 P.2d 9 (1976).
“‘A statute is remedial when it relates to practice, procedure, or remedies and does not
affect a substantive or vested right.’” 1000 Virginia Ltd. P’ship v. Vertecs Corp., 158
Wn.2d 566, 586, 146 P.3d 423 (2006) (quoting Miebach v. Colasurdo, 102 Wn.2d 170,
181, 685 P.2d 1074 (1984).
RCW 42.56.550, both before and after its amendment by SHB 1899, governs
judicial review of agency actions under the PRA. Its subsection (4), both before and after
its amendment by SHB 1899, identifies the remedies available to a person who prevails
against an agency in an action brought under the statute. By removing the floor to the
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Zink v. City of Mesa
per-day penalty amount that a trial court can impose, SHB 1899 related to a remedy. The
trial court correctly concluded that the 2011 amendment was remedial and retroactive.
The Zinks argue that even if the 2011 amendment was remedial, it affected a
vested right. “‘[A] right cannot be considered a vested right, unless it is something more
than such a mere expectation as may be based upon an anticipated continuance of the
present general laws: it must have become a title, legal or equitable, to the present or
future enjoyment of property.’” Miebach, 102 Wn.2d at 181 (quoting Gillis v. King
County, 42 Wn.2d 373, 377, 255 P.2d 546 (1953)). Accordingly, a party with a cause of
action or remedy created by statute does not have a vested right until a final judgment is
entered. Haddenham, 87 Wn.2d at 149.
The 2011 amendment removing the PRA’s penalty floor is remedial and the trial
court properly applied it retroactively.
Affirmed.
The remainder of this opinion has no precedential value. Therefore, it will be filed
for public record in accordance with RCW 2.06.040, the rules governing unpublished
opinions.
APPEAL
III. RETROACTIVE APPLICATION OF THE PRA’S 2011 AMENDMENT IS NOT PREVENTED
BY THE LAW OF THE CASE DOCTRINE OR ANY CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISION
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The Zinks argue that for five additional reasons, the 2011 amendment to the PRA
cannot apply to their claim. They argue first that under the “law of the case” doctrine,
Zink III determined conclusively that the law in effect at the time their action was filed
was controlling.
In its “most common form,” the law of the case doctrine provides that “once there
is an appellate holding enunciating a principle of law, that holding will be followed in
subsequent stages of the same litigation.” Roberson v. Perez, 156 Wn.2d 33, 41, 123
P.3d 844 (2005). The doctrine “applies only to questions decided,” so matters not
discussed or otherwise involved in an appellate decision are not barred by the doctrine
from consideration in a subsequent appeal of the same litigation. Philip A. Trautman,
Claim and Issue Preclusion in Civil Litigation in Washington, 60 WASH. L. REV. 805,
811 (1985).
Nothing the Zinks point to in this court’s opinion in Zink III established law of the
case on the issue of the retroactive or prospective operation of SHB 1899. The fact that
we noted the bill’s passage in a footnote is not a ruling on its application. Our consistent
citations to the former version of the PRA in Zink III is unsurprising and inconsequential;
in addressing a claim under the PRA, we will rely on the statutes in effect at the time the
action was commenced unless a party demonstrates a basis for retroactively applying a
later statute. The city did so here, pointing to the remedial character of the 2011
amendment.
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The issue of whether SHB 1899 should apply retroactively was not presented in
Zink III, as demonstrated by the city’s postdecision motion requesting that we “consider,”
not “reconsider” whether it applied retroactively. E.g., CP at 200, 207. The fact that this
court summarily denied the city’s postdecision motion was not a rejection of the city’s
argument; as a matter of law, such an issue can and should be addressed by the trial court
on remand. See Franklin County Sheriff’s Office v. Parmelee, 175 Wn.2d 476, 481, 285
P.3d 67 (2012) (retroactivity of a legislative change to the PRA enacted while review was
pending should not have been taken up by the appellate court; it was an issue for the trial
court following remand).
The Zinks also argue that retroactively applying SHB 1899 violates rights
protected by the ex post facto, equal protection, and due process clauses of the United
States and Washington Constitutions.
The federal and state ex post facto clauses pertain exclusively to penal statutes.
Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346, 370, 117 S. Ct. 2072, 138 L. Ed. 2d 501 (1997);
Forster v. Pierce County, 99 Wn. App. 168, 178, 991 P.2d 687 (2000). “If a law is not
‘criminal’ or ‘punitive,’ it can be applied to any conduct, either past or future, without
violating the ex post facto clause.” Forster, 99 Wn. App. at 178. RCW 42.56.550 is not
a penal statute.
The Zinks’ equal protection argument is based on their observation that other
cases filed and decided before and after their action applied the provisions of the PRA as
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No. 34599-8-III
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it existed before its amendment in 2011. The equal protection clauses of the federal and
state constitutions require that the law must ensure that “‘persons similarly situated with
respect to the legitimate purpose of the law must receive like treatment.’” State v.
Johnson, 194 Wn. App. 304, 307, 374 P.3d 1206 (2016) (quoting State v. Coria, 120
Wn.2d 156, 169, 839 P.2d 890 (1992)). They are not a guarantee that parties will always
raise and effectively argue the law, or that courts will always correctly apply it. The
Zinks make no argument that, as amended in 2011, the PRA fails to ensure that persons
similarly situated with respect to the legitimate purpose of the law will receive like
treatment.12
Turning to the Zinks’ allegation of a violation of due process, “‘A retroactive law
violates due process when it deprives an individual of a vested right.’” State v. Varga,
151 Wn.2d 179, 195, 86 P.3d 139 (2004) (quoting State v. Shultz, 138 Wn.2d 638, 646,
980 P.2d 1265 (1999)). As earlier explained, the Zinks did not have a vested right to any
penalty range or amount.
Finally, the Zinks argue that the trial court’s retroactive application of SHB 1899
violated the separation of powers doctrine. They rely on inapposite case law holding that
12
As the city points out, there are several cases wherein Washington courts have
applied SHB 1899 retroactively to cases pending prior to its effective date. See West v.
Thurston County, 168 Wn. App. 162, 168, 187-88, 275 P.3d 1200 (2012) (action filed in
2007); Forbes v. City of Gold Bar, 171 Wn. App. 857, 859-60, 864, 288 P.3d 384 (2012)
(action filed in 2010); Bricker, 164 Wn. App. at 19, 21 n.3 (action filed in 2008).
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the legislature cannot retroactively change a statute in contravention of an existing
judicial construction of that statute. Br. of Appellant at 48 (citing, e.g., Am. Disc. Corp.
v. Shepherd, 129 Wn. App. 345, 354, 120 P.3d 96 (2005), aff’d, 160 Wn.2d 93, 156 P.3d
858 (2007)). SHB 1899 did not seek to retroactively change judicially-construed law; it
changed remedies that could be ordered in the future. No separation of powers issue is
presented.
CROSS APPEAL
IV. THE TRIAL COURT DID NOT ERR IN TREATING A JUNE 2003 MEMORANDUM
PROVIDING LEGAL GUIDANCE AS RAISING A “RED FLAG,” JUSTIFYING INCREASED
PENALTIES FOR WITHHOLDING THEREAFTER
In five public records provided to the Zinks, relied on for violations 6, 8, 15, 16,
and 22, the city redacted name and mailing address information for certain individuals.
On June 23, 2003, its clerk/treasurer obtained guidance from the Municipal Research and
Services Center (MRSC) on the subject of “[d]isclosure of names and/or addresses of
people identified in city attorney invoices and in invoices from company with whom city
contracts for building department services.” CP at 1062. The trial court treated the
memorandum as raising a red flag as to the propriety of the city’s redactions in the five
public records. In its worksheet for violation 6, for example, the trial court wrote,
“Initially, the redactions were in good faith, but in June, 2003 the City was advised that
the names and addresses should not be generally redacted. Yet, the City did not go back
and revisit its decision.” CP at 2442. The trial court increased its preliminary daily
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penalty rate for these violations from $5 to $20 following the city’s receipt of the MRSC
memorandum.
While the MRSC memorandum was responding to a question about names and
addresses of individuals identified in two specific situations, it provided a general
overview, including by identifying the situations when name and address information
could be withheld by a city. It included the following advice:
The general statute identifying most exemptions from public disclosure is
RCW 42.17.310(1). There is no exemption in RCW 42.17.310(1)
applicable to a city that specifically exempts names of individuals, except
for RCW 42.17.310(1)(e), which exempts “Information revealing the
identity of persons who are witnesses to or victims of crime or who file
complaints with investigative, law enforcement, or penology agencies,
other than the public disclosure commission, if disclosure would endanger
any person’s life, physical safety, or property.” Also, there may be
instances where, for example, names of witnesses may be deleted from
investigative records, under RCW 42.17.310(l)(d), to protect their “right to
privacy.” (RCW 42.17.255 states that a person’s right to privacy is
considered violated “only if disclosure of information about the person: (l)
Would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and (2) is not of
legitimate concern to the public.”)
There is in RCW 42.17.260(9) a prohibition on disclosure of “lists of
individuals requested for commercial purposes,” but that provision does
not apply to this request for disclosure.
As to addresses, the only public disclosure exemption that applies to
addresses of citizens is RCW 42.17.310(1)(v), which exempts “residential
addresses and residential telephone numbers of the customers of a public
utility contained in the records or lists held by the public utility of which
they are customers.” That exemption does not apply here. (Note that, for
public employees, there is an exemption in RCW 42.17.310(1)(u) for
“residential addresses or residential telephone numbers of employees or
volunteers of a public agency which are held by any public agency in
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personnel records, public employment related records, or volunteer rosters,
or are included in any mailing list of employees or volunteers of any public
agency.”)
CP at 1062-63.
The city argues that the MRSC memorandum was answering a narrow question
about redactions in attorney invoices and did not put it on notice that the redactions in the
five records at issue were improper. The city does not dispute that the redactions in the
five records were improper. The record it provides on review is insufficient for us to
determine independently whether it ever had a reasonable basis for believing they were
proper.
Even accepting the city’s characterization of its conduct in its brief on appeal,
however, we can affirm the trial court. According to the city’s brief, violations 6, 15 and
16 were based on its misunderstanding that an exemption for utility customers was not
limited to utility records, but was broad enough to include personally identifying
information in nonutility records about an individual who happened to be a utility
customer.13 Its brief describes violation 8 as based on its belief that it could redact post
office addresses of two of its council members based on the PRA exemption for the
13
The exemption, presently codified at RCW 42.56.330(2), generally exempts
“[t]he addresses, telephone numbers, electronic contact information, and customer-
specific utility usage and billing information in increments less than a billing cycle of the
customers of a public utility contained in the records or lists held by the public utility of
which they are customers.”
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residential addresses of agency employees.14 Violation 22 involved the redaction of the
identification of a resident who filed a complaint with the city that the city argues on
appeal might have been based on the misunderstanding of the utility record exemption or
a misunderstanding of an investigative record exemption. Since the MSRC memorandum
did not deal directly with any of the five records at issue, and the memorandum affirmed
the existence of exemptions for residential address information contained in utility,
employment, and investigative records, the city argues it was not placed on notice that the
redactions in the five records were improper.
Because the trial court announced in its oral ruling in May 2016 that it would
increase penalties for the redactions for periods after the city received the MRSC
memorandum, the city had the opportunity to make all of these arguments to the trial
court. At the time of presentment and entry of its findings and conclusions, the trial court
stood by its oral ruling:
[T]wo things are clear to me. That, one, if the staff—the memo referred
only to residential addresses, and P.O. boxes would not be included in that.
Number two, that memo pointed out sufficient number of very specific and
erroneous assertions of the exemption and redactions that it should have
caused the city to reexamine this whole area of the redaction of addresses.
And had it done so, it would have found all of its errors. And ultimately we
know that the redactions of all of these addresses were in error. And so
it’s—I’m going [to] stand by my original ruling, because it was part of a
pattern of stubbornness on the part of the city, even faced with that memo
14
The exemption, presently codified at RCW 42.56.250(3), includes the
“[r]esidential addresses” of agency employees that are held by an agency in personnel
records, public employment related records or mailing lists of employees.
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to not go back and reexamine the whole thing. So it was a more global
view from my point of view rather than on each individual type of
exemption.
RP (June 29, 2016) at 33-34.
The city's argument that an increase from a $5 per-day penalty to a $20 per-day
penalty was an abuse of discretion under these circumstances is not well taken. If the
MRSC memorandum had directly addressed the impropriety of the city's redactions in
the five documents, the appropriate increase to the preliminary penalty would presumably
have been to $100 per day. Given that the memorandum raised a red flag that the city
might be too aggressively redacting information that is subject to only a few, narrow
exemptions, the increase of the preliminary penalty to $20 per day was well within the
trial court's discretion.
The Zinks request costs under RAP 14.1. Because costs are recoverable only by a
substantially prevailing party and neither party has substantially prevailed in this appeal,
the request is denied.
Affirmed.
WE CONCUR:
Lawrence-Berrey, C.J. Korsmo, J .tJ
32