$3,800 Paid to Ohio Prisoner for Denied Records Request
In a letter dated July 8, 2024, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) confirmed a $2,800 settlement with state prisoner Trevor J. Teagarden, resolving claims for denied public records requests made to the state Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections (DRC) pursuant to ORC § 149.43. An additional $1,000 was added by the state Supreme Court on December 10, 2024, when it found for Teagarden in another suit he filed over DRC’s denial of a second request.
Teagarden, 51, requested a copy of the staffing schedule for his housing unit at Pickaway Correctional Institution (PCI) in September 2023. But he wasn’t provided a copy; rather he was told that it should be posted where he could view it. DRC Unit Management Administrator (UAM) Carole Crockett-Harris helpfully promised to remind guards that they needed to ensure it was posted. The prisoner repeated this process for each of three other housing units, but to each he got the same non-responsive reply.
He then filed pro se for a writ of mandamus with the state Supreme Court in October 2023, asking for enforcement of DRC’s statutory obligation to comply with the records request. He also requested damages—by statute amounting to $100 per day, up to $1,000 total for each denied request. DRC responded that his requests were improper, or made to the wrong person, and moved for summary judgment. Instead, the Court scheduled a briefing in May 2024. Two months later, DRC reached its settlement with Teagarden, whose suit was then dismissed. See: State of ex rel. Teagarden v. Pickaway Corr. Institution, Ohio, Case No. 2024-380.
Teagarden’s most recent suit was also filed in the Supreme Court, after PCI Assistant Librarian Atiboroko Oshobe responded to his June 2023 request for a copy of DRC’s medical consultation protocol by saying: “You can stop by the law library whenever you can to review 68-Med-01 to 24 to get the ODRC Medical Protocol that you are requesting.” He got the same reply from Librarian Nnacho Igwe to a request sent the following month for DRC’s “Policy Index.” Recreation Officer Cora Handley also gave the same reply when he requested recreation schedules a month after that, in August 2023.
Filing pro se for another writ of mandamus with the Supreme Court in December 2023, Teagarden again provoked DRC to claim he misdirected his requests. But again he found the Court was on his side. Quoting the relevant statute in its opinion, the Court said that it didn’t matter who the prison put in charge of requests; the statute put responsibility for compliance on the person charged with keeping custody of the record. That could have made the request to Handley appropriate, and her denial a violation of ORC § 149.43, except the prisoner failed to include with his mandamus action any evidence that she was the record custodian. So he was not entitled to damages from her refusal.
Nor for denials by Oshobe and Igwe to requests for medical protocols. Although prisoners had no way to view them without going to the library, that didn’t make the library the records’ custodian, the Court said, denying Teagarden’s request. Two companion requests he made for sign-in sheets at the library’s LEXIS terminal were enforced, since those records were in the librarians’ custody. But he was entitled to damages for only one violation, the Court said, since the requests were similar in time and subject matter. Accordingly, Teagarden was awarded $1,000. See: State ex rel. Teagarden v. Igwe, Slip Opinion No. 2024-Ohio-5772.
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Related legal case
State ex rel. Teagarden v. Igwe
| Year | 2024 |
|---|---|
| Cite | Slip Opinion No. 2024-Ohio-5772 |
| Level | State Supreme Court |
| Conclusion | Settlement |