Background
Sugarloaf Alliance, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the Sugarloaf Mountain area, filed two Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA) requests with Frederick County in October 2021. Sugarloaf suspected the County was secretly negotiating with Amazon Web Services to rezone a large portion of the Sugarloaf region for industrial data centers without public notice. The requests sought county emails referencing the Sugarloaf plan and specific phrases tied to draft plan revisions. The County acknowledged receipt but produced nothing for eight months, well past the MPIA’s 30-day deadline. Sugarloaf filed suit in June 2022.
After Sugarloaf filed suit, the County produced 20 documents and submitted Vaughn indices identifying 136 additional items it claimed were exempt from disclosure. Following a bench trial, the circuit court found the County’s Vaughn indices insufficiently particularized and ordered production of most withheld records, subject to an in camera review of 13 documents. Of those 15 documents ultimately reviewed in camera, 14 were found properly withheld. The circuit court also dismissed the individual MPIA coordinator as a defendant, finding his failure to respond — though “regrettable” — did not rise to the level of knowing and willful misconduct required for personal liability.
Sugarloaf then petitioned for $48,813.62 in attorneys’ fees and costs under GP § 4-362(f), which permits a fee award where the complainant has substantially prevailed. The circuit court found the hours expended and hourly rates charged to be “customary and reasonable,” but awarded only $25,000 — nearly half the requested amount — without clearly applying the lodestar framework required by Maryland Rule 2-703(f)(3). The Appellate Court of Maryland affirmed. Sugarloaf sought certiorari, and the Supreme Court of Maryland granted review.
The Court’s Holding
The Supreme Court of Maryland, in an opinion by Justice Watts (with Justices Gould, Eaves, and Killough dissenting), reversed the Appellate Court and remanded for the fee award to be vacated and reconsidered. The Court held that the circuit court abused its discretion by failing to follow the lodestar approach mandated by Maryland Rule 2-703(f)(3) when determining the amount of attorneys’ fees to award a substantially prevailing MPIA complainant. Under the lodestar method, a court calculates a baseline by multiplying the hours reasonably spent by a reasonable hourly rate, then adjusts based on the specific factors enumerated in the Rule.
The Court identified two factors the circuit court improperly considered in reducing the award: first, its statement that it would not “ascribe an evil motive” to county officials; and second, its observation that Frederick County’s citizens would bear the financial burden of any fee award. Neither consideration appears among the factors in Maryland Rule 2-703(f)(3), and neither is an appropriate basis for reducing a fee award under the lodestar approach. The Court found it particularly significant that the circuit court declared the requested hours and rates reasonable, yet still cut the award by approximately half without providing a principled explanation grounded in the applicable legal standard.
The Court remanded with instructions to the Appellate Court to vacate the circuit court’s $25,000 award and return the case to the trial court for a proper reconsideration of the attorneys’ fee petition. The Court’s ruling did not disturb the Appellate Court’s separate holding vacating the denial of Sugarloaf’s supplemental fee petition, which also remains pending on remand.
Key Takeaways
- MPIA attorneys’ fee awards to substantially prevailing complainants must be calculated using the lodestar method under Maryland Rule 2-703(f)(3); courts may not substitute ad hoc equitable considerations.
- A trial court abuses its discretion when it finds requested hours and rates to be reasonable but then sharply reduces the award based on factors outside Rule 2-703(f)(3) — such as the absence of bad faith or the identity of the fee payor — without adequate legal grounding.
- The fact that a fee award will be paid by a government entity and ultimately borne by taxpayers is not a permissible basis for discounting an otherwise reasonable MPIA fee award.
- An MPIA coordinator’s failure to timely respond, even if characterized as confusion or administrative oversight, can support a finding that the complainant substantially prevailed and is eligible for fee-shifting.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces that fee-shifting under Maryland’s public records law carries real teeth. By holding that trial courts must rigorously apply the Rule 2-703(f)(3) lodestar framework and cannot discount fee awards based on the government’s lack of malice or the taxpayer cost of compliance, the Supreme Court of Maryland strengthens the incentive structure that enables citizens and nonprofits to enforce MPIA rights. Attorneys representing public records litigants can now point to this decision when opposing below-lodestar awards that lack methodological grounding.
The case also offers a cautionary note for government custodians. Here, the County’s MPIA coordinator admitted he stopped processing legitimate requests because an unrelated meeting with a third party “had gone well” — effectively subordinating statutory obligations to an unofficial assessment of the requestor’s need. The resulting eight-month silence, followed by litigation, generated fee exposure that the Supreme Court has now signaled courts cannot informally reduce based on sympathy for the public fisc.