Background
Cleother Tidwell, acting pro se, asked the City of Alton under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act for the court docket in a lawsuit titled Ayron Womack v. American Water Works, City of Alton, IL. The City’s FOIA officer responded twice that the City did not have access to or a record of that case and directed Tidwell to the Madison County court system.
Tidwell sued the City, alleging a FOIA violation. The Madison County circuit court dismissed the complaint under section 2-619(a)(9), finding that Tidwell had submitted his request to the wrong public body and that the City could not produce records it did not possess. The court denied reconsideration, and Tidwell appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Illinois Appellate Court, Fifth District, affirmed. FOIA requires disclosure of public records in a public body’s custody and possession; it does not require a public body to obtain or create records it does not maintain. Tidwell’s own complaint established that the City did not maintain the requested court-file records and that he wanted the City to download them from elsewhere.
The court held that this fact defeated Tidwell’s FOIA claim and made dismissal proper. It also deemed the appeal frivolous, explaining that a reasonable attorney would not pursue an appeal after Tidwell had been told to seek the court records from the body that maintains them. The court did not impose sanctions, but again admonished Tidwell that continued frivolous or vexatious appeals could lead to a leave-to-file restriction.
Key Takeaways
- FOIA does not require a public body to provide records it does not possess or maintain.
- A requester must direct a records request to the public body that has custody of the requested records.
- The court may treat an appeal as frivolous when a litigant persists after being advised of the proper records custodian.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the custody-and-possession limit on FOIA obligations. A public body does not violate FOIA by declining to retrieve a publicly available record from another governmental entity or system.
The order is nonprecedential under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 23, except in the limited circumstances allowed by that rule.