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"Pennsylvania&rsquo;s Commonwealth Court has ruled that the state is required to answer a<br /><br />Right-to-Know Law request within five days of an agency&rsquo;s open-records officer receiving the request, not within five days of <i>any</i> agency employee receiving the request.<br /><br />The ruling came out of an appeal a three-judge Commonwealth Court panel was handling in a case in which both the Governor&rsquo;s Office and the Office of Open Records each sought summary relief for their respective positions.<br /><br />The Governor&rsquo;s Office had filed for declaratory judgment over its contention that under Section 901 of the Right-to-Know Law, the five-day timeframe within which an agency is required to respond to a written request for records begins on the day on which an agency&rsquo;s open-records officer receives the request.<br /><br />The Office of Open Records, however, argued that the five-day timeframe begins on the day on which any agency employee receives the request.<br /><br />In granting the Governor&rsquo;s Office&rsquo;s application for summary relief and denying the OOR&rsquo;s cross-application for summary relief, the appeals panel wrote that the statutory language in Section 901 of the RTKL is unambiguous.<br /><br />&ldquo;Once the open-records officer for any agency, <i>not </i>any agency employee, receives a written request for records, the agency has five business days to respond to the request,&rdquo; the panel wrote. &ldquo;Based on this conclusion, there is no need to resort to other indicia of legislative intent.&rdquo;<br /><br />The OOR had argued that under the last sentence in Section 901 of the RTKL, a written request for access is deemed denied if an &ldquo;agency&rdquo; fails to respond to the request within five business days and, based on that language, the five-day response time must commence when the &ldquo;agency&rdquo; receives the request.<br /><br />This interpretation, however, would require the court to ignore the language of Section 901 specifically referring to receipt of the written request &ldquo;by the open-records officer for an agency,&rdquo; the judges wrote.<br /><br />&ldquo;Because OOR&rsquo;s interpretation would prohibit us from giving effect to all of Section 901&rsquo;s provisions, we reject OOR&rsquo;s argument,&rdquo; the opinion states.<br /><br />The panel also rejected the notion that under its interpretation, an agency would be inclined to act in bad faith by delaying the transmission of a request from its employees to its open-records officer, or to refuse to respond to a request until the request reaches its open-records officer.<br /><br />&ldquo;No rule of law requires this Court to presume that an agency will act in bad faith in complying with its statutory duties,&rdquo; the opinion reads. &ldquo;Rather, we presume here that every agency attempts to comply with the RTKL in good faith.&rdquo;<br /><br />The appeal arose out of a case in which Sean Donahue submitted a RTKL request back in early March of last year seeking various state government budgetary and employment records.<br /><br />On March 19, the Office of General Counsel issued a letter to Donahue stating that on March 12, Donahue&rsquo;s request was received by the open-records officers of the Governor&rsquo;s Office and other agencies to which the request was also directed, but that the request was not directly received by the open-records officers from Donahue.<br /><br />The letter also stated that the OGC was issuing a response on behalf of the various agencies that granted the request in part and denied the request in part for various reasons.<br /><br />Donahue appealed to the OOR on March 29 of last year.<br /><br />The OOR subsequently determined that Donahue&rsquo;s request was properly denied, the record shows.<br /><br />The Governor&rsquo;s Office filed its appeal with Commonwealth Court on May 24, seeking a declaration that the OOR is misinterpreting the RTKL with respect to the commencement of the five-day response time listed in Section 901 of the RTKL.<br /><br />The opinion was written by Commonwealth Court Judge P. Kevin Brobson. President Judge Dan Pellegrini and Judge Bonnie Brigance Leadbetter joined on the decision, which was filed Jan. 23."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://pennrecord.com/stories/510552784-commonwealth-court-issues-ruling-in-rtkl-response-timeframe-matter>