Judge: Four trustees liable for $70,000 of school district's $166,081 legal bill

A final ruling in a lawsuit seeking to obtain records from the Douglas County School District and four trustees was issued on Friday morning.

District Judge Tom Gregory found that a total award of $166,081.16 is payable by Douglas County School District, of which $70,000 is joint and several with trustees Susan Jansen, David Burns, Katherine Dickerson and former trustee Doug Englekirk.

Petitioners Ricky Miller, Marty Swisher, Joe Girdner and Robbe Lehmann sought to obtain records from the four trustees during 2023.

The public records requests were filed May 17 and July 26 during the first year the four trustees were in a majority on the school board and hired Joey Gilbert Law.

In addition to records kept on the school district’s computers, the requests sought records from the four trustees’ personal devices.

“DCSD, through its counsel, produced some responsive documents from DCSD’s servers and trustees’ personal electronic devices but denied the existence of additional responsive public records,” Gregory wrote. “Not convinced, petitioners sued.”

The trustees continued to deny having any additional records and maintained the stance and volunteered to search, which turned up 500 pages of responsive documents on the district’s server and 6,136 pages of records on trustees’ electronic devices.

Those records weren’t produced until July 2024.

Under Nevada law, petitioners are entitled to recover public documents from officials related to their positions.

“A live controversy exists until all the requested records have been produced and outstanding issues regarding penalties, attorney fees and costs have been resolved,” Gregory wrote. “The number of records ultimately produced has no bearing, even one page is sufficient. Attorney’s fees are compensable even if records were accidentally withheld or withheld in good faith.”

Gregory said there was not contention that any entity other than the school district or the trustees are the governmental entity having custody or control over the documents, even if they are on trustees’ personal electronic devices.

“Each named governmental entity failed to produce responsive records within its legal custody or control for nearly one year after petitioners brought suit,” according to the ruling. “Blame for the unacceptable and unreasonable delay falls solely and equally on DCSD and each individually named trustee.”

Gregory said the litigant’s attorney Rich McGuffin’s work was related to the effort to obtain the records.

“Petitioners’ motive in requesting the public records is irrelevant,” Gregory said. “Petitioners succeeded in obtaining reams of responsive records. The court finds no evidence of overworking the case or proceeding without reasonable grounds or in bad faith.”

The district and the four trustees argued that a settlement rejected by the non-involved trustees should be the end of the accrued legal fees, but Gregory disagreed.

“Recall, DCSD and trustees vociferously denied the existence of additional responsive documents over one year before producing 6,636 pages of responsive documents shortly before the hearing,” Gregory wrote. “Against this backdrop, petitioners are not faulted for failing to accept respondents’ representation to the effect of, ‘No other responsive documents exist, we really mean it this time, believe us.’”

Gregory pointed out that he had ordered the district and trustees to comply with an order requiring detailed declarations of compliance about the searches.