Polk Law Blog

The recent hubbub over the Polk County School Board’s refusal to provide personal information about participants in its employee health plan has gotten me thinking about public records disclosure and using the legal system to effectuate social change. If you haven’t been paying attention, here’s what happened:

1. A local self-proclaimed “troublemaker,” Joel Chandler, had a pre-existing issue with the Polk County School Board.  I think it concerned an earlier public records request but I am not sure.

2. To prove a point, he sent a request to the School Board asking for the name, address, employment status, job title, age, gender, and telephone number of every single person covered by the School Board’s health insurance plan, including all dependents (such as minor children of employees). Reaction by School Board: minor freak out. 

3. The School Board refused to turn over the documents citing a number of defenses (HIPAA, technical defects in the request, etc…) and he took them to court. None of the defenses panned out and Mr. Chandler won access to the records under Florida public records laws. The School Board had to pay his legal fees. 

4. An attorney for the School board was assessed a misdemeanor fine for failing to comply with the public records laws. Even while assessing the fine, the judge characterized the actions of the attorney as “admirable.”

The whole business reminds me of a professor I had in law school: John Banzhaf, or simply “Banzhaf” to us (the only non-profane thing we ever called him). Banzhaf was my torts professor, and he loved his torts. He practiced (and to my knowledge still practices) his own brand of legal activism by filing lawsuits deliberately designed to stretch the law in fringe situations, from the mundane or ridiculous to the (debatably) revolutionary. His exploits include everything from suits against fast food restaurants for making people fat, to suits against tobacco companies for giving people lung cancer, to suits against dry cleaners for charging more to clean women’s shirts, and suing night clubs for charging men more on ladies’ night. 

He taught (and may still teach) a class designed to have his students bring a similar lawsuit of their choice. He put up posters around the school around registration time proclaiming loudly that we, mere law students, could “SUE THE BASTARDS!!!! (for credit!)” and change the world (for credit!). I would imagine this is exactly the type of suit Banzhaf would have had his students jump on (for credit!). 

Our friendly local troublemaker (who has made the same request and filed the same suits in other counties, by the way) and John Banzhaf are cut from the same mold. When they are successful, they feel that they have done justice. When they are unsuccessful, they feel they have brought attention to a bad law or policy. Either way, they view themselves as crusaders, proudly enforcing the law where it should be enforced and being the impetus for change when it needs to be changed. 

Let me say at the outset: Mr. Chandler, I salute you. I love to see someone take on authority and win. The court system is supposed to uphold the law, government bodies need to abide by it, and I like it when someone who is right takes it all the way and gets justice in the end.  I’m serious about that. I would have loved to have been the attorney on a case like this. Mr. Chandler, you have successfully:

(a) humbled a large government organization that disobeyed the law, and 

(b) sparked a renewed debate about the need for another exception to the public records law that no one thought would ever be an issue in the real world.

(Note:  I COMPLETELY understand the School Board’s desire to withhold the documents and would have also enjoyed directing my energies to finding some clever (legal!) way to prevent the disclosure. )

Having gotten that off my chest, let me move on to the main purpose of writing this little article.  To all people like Mr. Chandler, John Banzhaf, and your ilk: do you not have anything better to do? Our legal system, ponderous and inefficient it may be, usually upholds the laws of the land. I get frustrated when people take up crusades not because they have an interest in the end result, but because they want to call attention to something for some other purpose. Mr. Chandler has admitted in various posts on various forums on the internet that he had no real need for the info. Why freak out a bunch of friendly underpaid schoolteachers for no real need other than a personal crusade? 

Our world needs activists who stretch the boundaries of the system and shine lights into the dark corners of government corruption and injustice. Please, please, direct your energies to things that are truly important. Why not request documents related to the recent corruption scandal at the School Board? Why not bring the same suit to get documents that you really do need to accomplish some larger purpose? 

This suit reached the right result, but it was completely symbolic. The underlying issue had nothing to do with anything of importance – it was designed solely to call attention to the process. If one is inclined to spend that much time and money on something, try to catch the government in the act of being corrupt, not in the very decent act of providing health care to its employees.