What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? California
I emailed a public records request for copies of a city report and mailed them $178.76 as a deposit (based upon an estimated 2 hours of staff time at $89.38 per hour) for the retrieval/copying of 19 of the reports - which differed from each other only as to month and locations covered.
When the reports were ready, the city told me that their retrieval had taken the full 2 hours.
The reports - which were bar graphs generated by a computer program and were outputted as PDFs, were emailed to me as created, in PDF format. When I examined the “created” date and time associated with the individual PDFs I noted that they were created as close as 52 seconds apart.
I also examined a set of the same reports I received from another city. That city’s personnel created the same reports at the rate of 2 – 3 reports per minute.
Based upon their own demonstrated performance, the first city's personnel should have been able to create the 19 documents in 16.46 minutes (or less) at a cost of $24.52 (or less). I filed a claim for $154.23, the amount I was charged in excess of that amount.
The city just sent me a denial of my claim. They are about congested 40 miles away, in the same county as me but a different courthouse. Can I sue in my local courthouse, or do I have to go to theirs? And, what is best way to make the case & show the judge the created date and time?
I emailed a public records request for copies of a city report and mailed them $178.76 as a deposit (based upon an estimated 2 hours of staff time at $89.38 per hour) for the retrieval/copying of 19 of the reports - which differed from each other only as to month and locations covered.
When the reports were ready, the city told me that their retrieval had taken the full 2 hours.
The reports - which were bar graphs generated by a computer program and were outputted as PDFs, were emailed to me as created, in PDF format. When I examined the “created” date and time associated with the individual PDFs I noted that they were created as close as 52 seconds apart.
I also examined a set of the same reports I received from another city. That city’s personnel created the same reports at the rate of 2 – 3 reports per minute.
Based upon their own demonstrated performance, the first city's personnel should have been able to create the 19 documents in 16.46 minutes (or less) at a cost of $24.52 (or less). I filed a claim for $154.23, the amount I was charged in excess of that amount.
The city just sent me a denial of my claim. They are about congested 40 miles away, in the same county as me but a different courthouse. Can I sue in my local courthouse, or do I have to go to theirs? And, what is best way to make the case & show the judge the created date and time?