The court’s decision “made clear that the statutory language might not allow fee recovery in such instances — as a result, government actors potentially now have a reason not to turn records over promptly,” WILL wrote in its brief.
Transparency advocates blast Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling for adding barriers to public records
Transparency advocates blast Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling for adding barriers to public records
Mitchell Schmidt | Wisconsin State Journal
Open records advocates, including the Wisconsin Transparency Project and the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, blasted the court’s ruling earlier this month, with Tim Kamenick, president and founder of the Transparency Project and a former WILL attorney, calling it “a dark day for transparency in Wisconsin.”
“The law doesn’t say a plaintiff has to get a court order, it says a plaintiff has to ‘prevail,’” Kamenick said at the time. “When you get the records you sued to obtain, you’ve prevailed — you’ve obtained the result you wanted.”