Swaney v. Tilford’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “It is undisputed that the ADFA is not in possession of the records requested by the appellant. However, the statute clearly provides that a citizen have reasonable access to public records. The term “custodian of the records” has not been defined by statute or case law in Arkansas. The trial court found that the private [auditing firm] in this case was the custodian of the records and should therefore be subject to the Act. Nevertheless, the legislative intent of the Act supports the proposition that the agency must provide reasonable access to the requesting citizen, where it is undisputed that the records requested are “public records” pursuant to the Act. [The ADFA] argues that it does not have constructive possession or administrative control over the files of [the auditing firm], has in fact never seen the requested records, and that it cannot produce records it does not possess or have in its control. These factors are initially relevant to the determination of whether a document will be considered a public record____Once that issue is conceded, the statutory scheme and the legislative intent of the Act mandates that the burden be placed on the appropriate state agency to make arrangements for reasonable access to the records in its office or the office of the private custodian. Appellee does not contend that it is otherwise not the appropriate governmental entity to which the FOI request should have been directed, nor was that issue developed or argued below. We hold t”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Fox v. Perroni