Charging for research and the CPRA
Q: I submitted a Public Records Act Request with the air district, asking for copies of different kinds of permit applications. They came back to us stating that they copied about 50 pages and cost would be $435. Most of this cost was because of the five hours staff spent searching for the materials. I found this high cost to be quite ridiculous and then saw on your website that it is illegal for public entities to charge for the cost of labor.
I find this amazing because on the district’s form they have a section to fill in the cost of “Research Time.” In this situation, am I correct in believing they are not allowed to charge us this?
A: Assuming that there is no applicable statutory fee, then, the school district would only be entitled to payment of the “direct cost of duplication,” and only if you wanted a copy of the records. In a 1994 decision (North County Parents Organization v. Department of Education, 23 Cal. App. 4th 144), the California Court of Appeal said that for purposes of the Public Records Act, the “direct cost of duplication” means “the cost of running the copy machine, and conceivably also the expense of the person operating it. ‘Direct cost’ does not include the ancillary tasks necessarily associated with the retrieval, inspection and handling of the file from which the copy is extracted.” Thus, it appears the district should not be entitled to charge you for the cost of searching for the materials.
One way to think about the situation is that if the district would have had to spend the 5 hours to search for the records even if you had only asked to inspect them — and it is clear that the district could not have charged you for such inspection. It does not seem to make sense to allow the district to have you pay for that search time simply because you asked for copies rather than inspection.