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Parks v. Webb

OHIOCTCLApril 17, 2018No. 2017-00995PQ
Plaintiff WinWebb
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Case Details

Judge(s)
McGrath
Status — whether other courts must follow this ruling
Published
Procedural Posture — the stage the case had reached
Special master recommended relief; court adopted special master's decision

Related Laws

No specific laws identified for this ruling.

Outcome

Court adopted the special master's recommendation that the respondent must provide draft meeting minutes in the original format they were kept, rather than converting to PDF format.

Excerpt

Core Terms: public record court of claims R.C. 2743.75 R.C. 149.43 R.C. 9.01 format metadata. Overview: Requester sought draft meeting minutes in the format they were kept at the time of the request. Respondent stated it had no duty to provide a document that could be edited, and produced the record in PDF format that was both less functional and contained less or different metadata. The special master recommended that the court order respondent to provide the record in the format in which it was kept. Outcome: The court determined that there was no error of law or other defect evident on the face of the special master's decision. The court adopted the special master's report and recommendation as its own, including findings of fact and conclusions of law contained therein.

What This Ruling Means

**Parks v. Webb: Court Orders Public Records in Original Format** This case involved a dispute over how public records must be provided under Ohio law. Parks requested draft meeting minutes from a government entity (Webb) and specifically wanted them in their original digital format. Webb refused, arguing they had no obligation to provide editable documents that could be altered. Instead, Webb converted the records to PDF format, which removed functionality and changed important technical information called metadata. **The Court's Decision:** The court ruled in favor of Parks, ordering Webb to provide the draft meeting minutes in their original format rather than the converted PDF version. The court found that Ohio's public records law requires government entities to provide records in the format they were originally kept, not in a different format chosen by the agency. **What This Means for Workers:** This ruling strengthens workers' rights to access public records in their most useful form. If you work for a government entity or need public records for workplace issues, you can now point to this case to demand records in their original format. This is especially important when you need fully functional documents with complete technical information, rather than simplified versions that might hide important details.

This summary was generated to explain the ruling in plain English and is not legal advice.

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