ATLANTA — Georgia's Supreme Court issued a ruling on Monday expanding the scope of public records access under the state's Open Records Act.
The state's high court heard an appeal from a man, Ryan Milliron, who had filed an open records suit against a Georgia Tech professor, Emmanouil "Manos" Antonakakis.
Milliron had "sought to compel Antonakakis to respond to his request for records concerning Antonakakis’ service to Georgia Tech as a private contractor, which Milliron claimed were public records in the custody of Antonakakis," a summary from the state Supreme Court said.
The Court's ruling said Milliron "contended that Antonakakis was the 'founder and owner' of two companies... which were allegedly formed by Antonakakis 'for the purpose of receiving funding from the federal Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to carry out work for Georgia Tech’s benefit' and/or to perform other services 'with, for, and on behalf of Georgia Tech.'"
The ruling, written by Justice Shawn Ellen LaGrua, further noted that Milliron asserted that Antonakakis "'prepared and maintained or received records,' including 'documents related to Georgia Tech business,' for 'storage or future governmental use,' and these documents were considered 'public records' under the Open Records 5 Act."
A Fulton County trial court and the Georgia Court of Appeals had both sided with Antonakakis, rejecting arguments that a public or state employee is personally responsible for producing public records documents under an Open Records Act request -- rather than specifically appointed public records officers within agencies that must fall under compliance with the act.
But the Georgia Supreme Court reversed those two courts, With Justice LaGrua writing:
We granted certiorari in this case to decide two issues: first, whether the Open Records Act, OCGA § 50-18-70 et seq., applies to records held by an individual who is employed by a public agency and who also performs services for that agency as a private contractor where the records sought relate to that individual’s services as a private contractor for the agency; and second, if the Open Records Act does apply to such records, whether an open records request can be sent directly to the private contractor or must instead be sent to the agency or the agency’s open records officer, assuming one has been designated. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the Open Records Act applies to such records, and while we agree with the Court of Appeals that an agency may designate an open records officer upon whom all written open records requests to the agency must be made, see OCGA § 50-18-71 (b) (1) (B),1 we conclude that, even when such an officer has been designated by an agency, a request for public records related to a private contractor’s services to a public agency can be served upon non-agency custodians of the relevant public records—including the private contractor if he or she is the custodian of the records sought—and the Court of Appeals erred in concluding otherwise.
See the full ruling below:
