City of Fort Smith, a Municipal Corporation Keith Lau

Summary

The court held that Arkansas FOIA's open-meeting provisions can apply to email and other electronic communications among governmental officials. It nevertheless reversed summary judgment for Wade because the emails at issue conveyed information, recommendations, and unsolicited responses without soliciting or producing a decision, and the matters were later addressed in public meetings. Justices Wynne and Womack concurred in part and dissented in part, differing over whether the emails constituted a prohibited group discussion and whether the court should have expressly extended FOIA to email.