School board email did not violate Sunshine Law

Chris Heather, a member of Ohio’s Northwest Local School District Board of Education, wrote a newspaper column criticizing past actions of the board, calling on the public to support two non-incumbents in the next election. Bill Lambert, another member of the board, wrote an email to two other school board members discussing factual inaccuracies in Heather’s letter and suggesting that the other members draft a response.

Plaintiff Haverkos, who as the court noted “seem[ed] to have a long history of opposition to the school board,” filed suit against the board alleging that the email communication and subsequent actions by the members of the board violated Ohio’s “Sunshine Law,” R.C. 121.22 et seq. That law requires, among other things, that public officials conduct all deliberations on official business only in open meetings.

The trial court had held that sending the email was a violation of the Sunshine Law, and had awarded summary judgment in Plaintiff Haverkos’s favor. At issue on appeal was whether the email could be considered a “discussion” under the Sunshine Law and thus subject to the law’s provisions. The appellate court reversed the trial court, holding that Ohio’s Sunshine Law does not cover email communications. Furthermore, the subject of the email was limited to election politics, not official school board business.

Haverkos v. Northwest Local Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 2005 Ohio App. LEXIS 3237 (Ct. App. Ohio, July 8, 2005).

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