Suing a city for an overcharge

[Pugilist]

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?

[Stevef]

Originally Posted by Pugilist

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 don't work for a city, but I spend a lot of time creating reports. In my line, most of the time is spent gathering the data, and very little (comparatively) is spent actually producing the reports.

If you you to court over this, the burden of proof will be on you to prove (with a preponderance of evidence - more likely than not) that you were overcharged. Assuming the city simply responds that the retrieval time along with the production time totaled two hours, I don't think your evidence ("I think it took less") will be convincing to that standard.

I suppose you could request discovery, and get copies of all of the requests for that day and see if they totaled more hours than the employee worked. I suspect that battle would cost significantly more than $154.23.

[Pugilist]

Any opinion on what court it would need to be filed in?

Also, I do not understand why I cannot use the time stamps on the files themselves as evidence of how long it took to create them.

[racer72]

You agreed to the fee, you don't have a case.

[Stevef]

Originally Posted by Pugilist

Any opinion on what court it would need to be filed in?

Also, I do not understand why I cannot use the time stamps on the files themselves as evidence of how long it took to create them.

The time stamps may not indicate the time it took to do the required research. They may indicate the time it took for them to print.

[sandyclaus]

Originally Posted by Pugilist

Any opinion on what court it would need to be filed in?

Also, I do not understand why I cannot use the time stamps on the files themselves as evidence of how long it took to create them.

Because the time stamps only tell you when the reports were run. It doesn't tell you when the data was processed or how long that took. Or if the reports were printed on the first run, for that matter.

[JETX]

Of course, I agree that the time 'stamp' on the reports only shows when they were printed and has NOTHING to do with the time it might have taken to gather the information, format, etc.

It is also clear that the OP doesn't want to hear that and is only concerned about filing a lawsuit.

Go ahead and file wherever you want. The county will (or should) quickly file a 'motion to dismiss'.