Ohio Supreme Court: Appeals Court must reevaluate the scope of discovery in public records case

A court of appeals must reexamine the scope of discovery in an Ohio Public Records Act case brought by a government watchdog group, Center for Media and Democracy, against Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office regarding his activities with two national organizations, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled this week.

David Armiak, the center’s research director, sought public records about the attorney general’s involvement with the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) and the Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF) and Yost’s attendance at RAGA’s 2020 winter meeting.  

In discovery, the Tenth District Court of Appeals ordered Yost to produce various documents, respond to interrogatories, and sit for a two-hour deposition.

In a 6-1 decision, the Supreme Court found the Tenth District Court of Appeals misapplied the law and abused its discretion when it directed Yost and his office to respond and produce documents that were not relevant nor proportional to the needs of the public records action presented by the center. The Court vacated the Tenth District’s discovery order and ruled the appeals court did not adequately justify why Yost should be questioned in a deposition.

Writing for the Court majority, Justice Patrick F. Fischer explained that when a court orders discovery, it must limit the information to be exchanged to what is “relevant and proportional” under the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure.

In a public records request, the relevant and proportional standard requires that discoverable information be limited to relevant information concerning whether the records requested by Armiak are public records under the Public Records Act and information concerning the attorney general’s defenses that the requested records are not public records under the act. The Tenth District directed the attorney general’s office to produce information beyond the scope of those limited issues, he stated.

“The court of appeals, in our view, placed the proverbial cart before the horse,” he wrote.

Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy and Justices R. Patrick DeWine, Joseph T. Deters, Daniel R. Hawkins, and Megan E. Shanahan joined Justice Fischer’s opinion.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Jennifer Brunner wrote that the majority opinion did not provide guidance for a new or more measured way for courts to establish the proper scope of discovery in a public records case, but rather substituted its judgment for that of the Tenth District.

She noted that during the extensive legal proceedings between Armiak and Yost, the attorney general’s defenses for not releasing information have shifted and evolved. At one point, Yost admitted some documents in his office relating to RAGA and RDLF may be records subject to the Public Records Act.

“The approach employed by the court of appeals in determining what information would be relevant to the claims and defenses of the parties was not unreasonable, especially in light of the attorney general’s office’s evasive conduct and evolving defenses,” she wrote.