Davis

**Court Denies Attorney Fees in SEC Records Request Case** A worker sued the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after the agency failed to respond to a request for public records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The worker eventually received the documents they requested, but then asked the court to make the SEC pay their lawyer fees, arguing that filing the lawsuit forced the agency to finally release the records. The court refused to order the SEC to pay the worker's attorney fees. The judge found that the lawsuit itself didn't cause the SEC to release the documents. Instead, the delay happened because the worker's original request email accidentally went to the SEC's spam folder due to an administrative error. Since this was an unavoidable mistake rather than the agency deliberately ignoring the request, the court ruled the worker didn't "substantially prevail" in a way that would justify attorney fees. **What this means for workers:** If you need to sue a government agency to get public records, winning your case doesn't automatically mean they'll pay your legal costs. You must prove that your lawsuit directly caused the agency to release the records, and that any delays weren't due to honest administrative mistakes.