Lawyers for Lafayette Consolidated Government have dropped a lawsuit filed in August against City Court's attorney; the suit claimed the attorney failed to turn over public records requested by LCG.
The dismissal, "with prejudice" - which means LCG can't revive it later - was filed on Friday, Clerk's records show. It says that all costs will be assessed to LCG. There's no information about the reason for the dismissal, but we reached out to the attorneys representing LCG, to attorney Gary McGoffin and to City Court Judge Douglas Saloom for more information.
In a telephone interview, LCG City Attorney Greg Logan tells KATC that the city has the records needed now. He says the email notifying them that the records in question were ready never got to him. He said he later asked McGoffin what happened, and didn't get a response.
The court record includes several emails filed by LCG showing a back-and-forth between McGoffin and Logan, discussing difficulties with a USB drive, as well as an April 2022 email from Logan to McGoffin asking what happened with the request; McGoffin said he'd check on it. It is the position of LCG and Logan that he received no response after that.
Documents provided by Saloom do show letters from McGoffin to Logan after that April email, asking for a status on the audit that Logan had requested the records for.
Saloom sent us the following statement:
"The filing of the suit by Mr. Logan was unnecessary and a waste of taxpayer money. The requested documents sat waiting for his review for months but he chose to hire an attorney and file a lawsuit rather than just making an appointment to review the documents and copying what was found to be of interest to his non-independent auditors.
"At taxpayer expense and without Joint Council approval as required by LCG Charter, the Administration continues to audit the Court despite the fact that the Louisiana Legislative Auditors reviewed the Court's expense records and found nothing to investigate. While the Court hopes that the dismissal puts an end to the entire charade, prudence dictates otherwise. All Court financial transactions are, and will continue to be, independently audited and forwarded to both the Legislative Auditors office and LCG."
Back in August, attorneys for McGoffin had filed an exception to the suit, which was set for argument next week. In the exception, those lawyers argue that the suit names the wrong defendant, is filed on behalf of the wrong party, and is moot.
McGoffin is the attorney for City Court, not the custodian. Public records requests are filed with the custodian of those records, which in this case would be someone at Lafayette City Court, and thus if the request isn't filled the suit must be filed against that custodian. That means, the exception argues, the suit was filed against the wrong person.
Also, it was Logan who made the request, meaning he was the person who had "standing" to file the suit. It was instead filed on behalf of LCG, meaning it was filed by the wrong entity, too. And lastly, the suit is moot because the records had been available to LCG since a couple weeks after the request was made, the exception argues.
The exception requests that the suit be dismissed with prejudice and at LCG's cost. That's what the LCG dismissal filed Friday accomplished.
The suit was filed back in August, alleging that Lafayette City Court and its attorney, McGoffin, violated the public records law by failing to provide financial documents to LCG. Shortly after that, Saloom issued a lengthy public statement, alleging that LCG had access to those records since November 2021.
McGoffin has represented various local news organizations in several separate cases involving LCG's failure to comply with public records laws. He was the attorney who handled the public records suit filed by The Independent against former City Marshal Brian Pope, which led to Pope's indictment and conviction on several charges. More recently, McGoffin also has sued LCG on behalf of a family disputing the city's quick-take drainage process. And just last month he filed suit against LCG on behalf of several media groups after the Guillory administration began charging the media $1 per page for electronic documents.
In this case, LCG accused the court and McGoffin of failing to respond to a request for records that were needed for a forensic audit of the court's finances. The request was made in November 2021. The Metairie auditing firm hired by LCG to look into the spending at the court requested some specific records, and LCG in turn requested them from McGoffin. Those records were never provided, the LCG suit alleged.
But a 34-page document forwarded to the media by City Court Judge Doug Saloom just after the lawsuit was filed stated that the records were made available just a week or so after the request. Because the cost of reproducing those records as requested by LCG would have exceeded $1,500.00 of taxpayer money, the court said that the auditor could come look at them or pay for the copies, the judge said.
Saloom also noted that he had received a call from the Louisiana Legislative Auditor's office about a similar complaint received, but their investigation "found nothing" that would trigger a complete audit or any report at all. To read the original suit, and Saloom's statement, click here.
