Stuart Thomas v. Keith Hall

Summary

The court held that police use-of-force reports routinely prepared by the officer under department policy are not exempt from disclosure as employee-evaluation or job-performance records under the FOIA. Because the reports were contemporaneous narrative accounts prepared as part of ordinary administrative duties, and were not created as part of an investigation or supervisory evaluation, their later use in an investigation did not make them exempt. Chief Justice Hannah, concurring, agreed with the result but emphasized the records custodian's failure to prove the claimed exemption and questioned whether the statutory language produced the intended result.