Judged By His Peers

In a rather unusual case in which a justice of the Washington State Supreme Court had sued the state Attorney General for an allegedly inadequate response to a records request, the state supreme court held (with the litigant-justice not participating) as follows:

This case presented unique legal and factual complexities, which the trial court carefully considered.  We affirm the trial court’s decisions on all issues except (1) the interpretation of the attorney-client privilege and (2) the rulings on the claimed exemptions for SPDs 44 and 50-52.   We do not reach the first issue because we assume, without deciding, that the attorney-client privilege protects communications only if they pertain to legal advice. On the second issue, we hold that the claimed exemptions were invalid and AGO’s withholding of the documents was wrongful.  We treat these documents as one  “record” and impose the  trial court’s $8 per day penalty accordingly. Finally, because Justice Sanders prevailed in part, we award him 25 percent of his costs and attorney fees on appeal.

The litigation involved the justice’s visit to the unit a prison for sex offenders at McNeil Island, which had resulted in much publicized ethics charges against him. (Mike Frisch)