More than three years after fired East Baton Rouge Parish Attorney Mary Roper sued five Metro Council members for failing to comply with a public records request, the First Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court ruling fining the council members $4,000 each for failing to turn over in a timely manner all the documents Roper requested.
In its ruling, however, the appeals court threw out an additional $12,000 fine the 19th Judicial District Court had imposed in its 2015 ruling on one of the five defendants, then-council member and current state Rep. C. Denise Marcelle, because of her conduct in responding to the records request.
Attorney Murphy J. Foster III, who represents the defendants in the case, says the First Circuit ruling is an overall victory for his clients, not only because the amount of the judgment was reduced by $12,000 but because the court upheld the finding that the records request violations were only technical, not a result of the council members acting in bad faith.
“I don’t look at it as a loss,” says Foster, adding the city-parish, not the council members individually, will pay the judgment. “We see it as something of a victory.”
Roper did not return calls seeking comment.
The case dates back to 2014, when Roper was embroiled in a widely publicized controversy with the Metro Council that ultimately led to her termination. That November, she filed identical lawsuits against councilmembers Buddy Amoroso, Chandler Loupe and Trae Welch, and then-council members Marcelle and John Delgado, accusing each of failing to comply with a public records request she’d made months earlier of all 12 council members. The request sought thousands of emails, records and documents dating back to 2008 that she believed could be relevant to her firing.
In a 2015 trial, 19th Judicial District Court Judge Tim Kelley found the five council members had violated the state public records law for withholding certain emails they had determined were not relevant to Roper’s termination and for failing to respond within the legally required time limit.
However, the ruling found the violations were technical and not done in bad faith. Marcelle was fined more than the other defendants because of her alleged conduct in response to the lawsuit, which court documents say included sending Roper “an email accusing her of harassment and when served with Roper’s petition, angrily threw the pleading on the floor in the presence of the deputy sheriff.”
In its recent ruling, however, the appeals court determined that conduct did not amount to Marcelle’s arbitrary and capricious withholding of the documents Roper sought. Significantly, the appeals court also upheld the lower court ruling that Roper was not entitled to $1.2 million in damages.
The public records suit was one of several surrounding Roper’s firing. In 2016, the First Circuit upheld a lower court ruling throwing out a defamation suit Roper had filed against the city-parish. The Louisiana Supreme Court refused to take up the case.
