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PETITIONER WAS ENTITLED TO ATTORNEY’S FEES AS THE PREVAILING PARTY IN THIS FOIL PROCEEDING; RESPONDENT HAD AGREED TO ALLOW PETITIONER TO VIEW THE ELECTRONIC FILES USING ITS VIEWING PROGRAM, BUT HAD DENIED, FOR NO GOOD REASON, PETITIONER’S REQUEST TO TRANSFER THE FILES TO A FLASH DRIVE (THIRD DEPT).

The Third Department determined petitioner was entitled to attorney’s fees because petitioner substantially prevailed on certain requests for documents after commencing an Article 78 proceeding. With respect to one of the requests, although respondent had agreed to allow petitioner to view the requested electronic files using respondent’s viewing program, respondent, without good reason, denied petitioner’s request to place the files on a flash drive:

We agree with petitioner that Supreme Court erred in denying its request for counsel fees. As relevant here, a court in a FOIL proceeding “shall assess, against such agency involved, reasonable [counsel] fees and other litigation costs . . . in any case . . . in which such person has substantially prevailed and the court finds that the agency had no reasonable basis for denying access” to the records sought … . “‘A petitioner substantially prevails under Public Officers Law § 89 (4) (c) when it receives all the information that it requested and to which it was entitled in response to the underlying FOIL litigation'” … .

Petitioner substantially prevailed in the litigation. Through use of the judicial process, petitioner received documents responsive to demand Nos. 2-5 in the medium it desired and obtained a certification under demand Nos. 6-8 pertaining to multifamily homes … . Contrary to Supreme Court’s finding, the fact that the disclosure under demand Nos. 2-5 stemmed from a mutual accord between the parties does not change the analysis, as “the voluntariness of an agency’s disclosure after the commencement of a CPLR article 78 proceeding will not preclude a finding that a litigant has substantially prevailed” … . Moreover, respondent did not have a reasonable basis for the precommencement denial of the records responsive to demand Nos. 2-5, as evidenced by its subsequent production of said documents in electronic form. Matter of Aron Law PLLC v Town of Fallsburg, 2021 NY Slip Op 06593, Third Dept 11-24-21

 

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