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Message: [QUOTE="SU2NASA, post: 1177117, member: 800"] The most damning part may not even be the emails themselves, but rather FOIA. [SIZE=4][B][I]What about FOIA?[/I][/B][/SIZE] [I]I have been informed that Michigan erases Brandon's email regularly to prevent responsive requests by a person who worked in the athletic department for three years. A FOIA request for an email sent or received by Dave Brandon would end up going to his secretary. If the date of the email is given, his secretary would not even need to look to see if the email exists. All of Dave Brandon's emails are manually deleted from his university email once they are about one month old. They have been since he started. Since it is done manually, sometimes it's actually a little later, sometimes it is a little sooner, especially if the email is something that may be FOIAed. But it was explained to me that the whole point is to avoid responding to a FOIA request (like this one). I've been following this email/FOIA issue, and after I spoke with one of my friends in the athletic department, we agreed that we would be shocked if that email still existed in his email, even if it did exist at one time. This is why a specific request filed by an MGoBlog member turned up nothing. I have two FOIAs in with the department currently, one for six days of mail to and from two email addresses, the other for [EMAIL]DaveBrandonAD@umich.edu[/EMAIL] and [EMAIL]dabran@umich.edu[/EMAIL]dating back to January 1st of 2013. The department wants to charge me $385 for the first request and $1215 for the second—if those are at all proportional than there's approximately three weeks of email sitting there. Is this legal? Our local law-talker BISB weighs in: -------------------------------- If a state employee (such as, for random example, a University Athletic Director) deleted email exchanges, he was probably in violation of Michigan's FOIA law. Emails sent by an employee in the course of his official function are considered public records. The University of Michigan, and its employees, have an affirmative obligation to maintain public records: [URL='http://legislature.mi.gov/doc.aspx?mcl-15-233']MCL 15.233(3)[/URL]: "A public body shall protect public records from loss, unauthorized alteration, mutilation, or destruction." That duty extends to the individual employees. Intentionally deleting emails as a means of preventing them from being FOIAed would be a violation of [URL='http://legislature.mi.gov/doc.aspx?mcl-15-240']MCL 15.240(7)[/URL]: [/I] [INDENT][I]"If the circuit court determines... that the public body has arbitrarily and capriciously violated this Act by refusal or delay in disclosing or providing copies of a public record, the court shall award, in addition to any actual or compensatory damages, punitive damages in the amount of $500.00 to the person seeking the right to inspect or receive a copy of a public record." "Capricious and arbitrary" essentially [URL='http://definitions.uslegal.com/a/arbitrary-and-capricious/']means [/URL]without cause and in an abuse of power. The University of Michigan is the one subject to the penalty, but the employee is the one who committed the violation.[/I][/INDENT] [/QUOTE]

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