Maddie Griswold v. Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation (SPR 20253509)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Manza Arthur Supervisor of Records December 4, 2025 SPR25/3509 Clinton Dick, Esq. General Counsel Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation 1 Federal Street, Suite 0720 Boston, MA 02110-2012 Dear Attorney Dick: On November 26, 2025, this office received your petition on behalf of the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation (Office), seeking permission to charge for time spent segregating or redacting responsive records. G. L. c. 66, § 10(c); G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv); see also 950 C.M.R. 32.06(4). As required by law, it is my understanding that the Office furnished a copy of the petition to the requestor, Maddie Griswold, of Khan Law PLLC. G. L. c. 66, § 10(c); G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv)(2). On November 14, 2025, Ms. Griswold requested, “all decisions issued by HIC Complaints OCABR in hearings on complaints against contractors and arbitration proceedings from January 1, 2018, to present.” Petition to Assess Fees – Agencies A fee shall not assessed for time spent segregating or redacting records unless such segregation or redaction is required by law or approved by the Supervisor of Records (Supervisor) under a petition. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv). See G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iii); 950 C.M.R. 32.06(4). In rendering such a decision, the Supervisor is required to consider the following: a) the public interest served by limiting the cost of public access to the records; b) the financial ability of the requestor to pay the additional or increased fees; and c) any other relevant extenuating circumstances. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv). The statute sets out a two-prong test for determining whether the Supervisor may approve a municipality’s petition to allow the municipality to charge for time spent segregating or redacting records or to charge in excess of $25 an hour for the provision of public records. The first prong is whether the request for records was made for a commercial purpose. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv). It is my understanding that this request was not made for a commercial purpose. One Ashburton Place, Room 1719, Boston, Massachusetts 02108 • (617) 727-2832• Fax: (617) 727-5914 sec.state.ma.us/pre • pre@sec.state.ma.us

Clinton Dick, Esq. SPR25/3509 Page 2 December 4, 2025 The second prong of the test is whether the fee represents an actual and good faith representation by the municipality to comply with the request. The Supervisor must consider 1) if the fee is necessary such that the request could not have been prudently completed without the redaction or segregation or fee in excess of $25 per hour; 2) the amount of the fee is reasonable; and 3) the fee is not designed to limit, deter or prevent access to requested public records. Id. Petitions seeking a waiver of statutory limits to fees assessed to segregate and/or redact public records must be made within ten business days after receipt of a request for public records. 950 C.M.R. 32.06(4)(g). Fee Estimates – Agencies An agency may assess a reasonable fee for the production of a public record except those records that are freely available for public inspection. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d). The fees must reflect the actual cost of complying with a particular request. Id. A maximum fee of five cents ($.05) per page may be assessed for a black and white single or double-sided photocopy of a public record. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(i). Agencies may not assess a fee for the first four (4) hours of employee time to search for, compile, segregate, redact or reproduce the record or records requested. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(ii). Where appropriate, agencies may include as part of the fee an hourly rate equal to or less than the hourly rate attributed to the lowest paid employee who has the necessary skill required to search for, compile, segregate, redact or reproduce a record requested, but the fee shall not be more than $25 per hour. Id. Current Petition In its petition, in addition to charging for segregation and redaction required by law pursuant to Exemption (a) of the Public Records Law, the Office requests permission to charge for segregation and redaction under Exemption (c) and provides the following in support of its request: As detailed in the attached letter, which is incorporated by reference into this fee petition, OCABR conducted a search and identified approximately 43,188 documents responsive to this request. Privacy Exemption (G. L. c. 4, § 7(26)(c)- The documents requested contain or may contain personal identifying information, such as non-public mailing addresses, social security numbers, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, and other information that is exempt from disclosure pursuant to the privacy exemption[.] OCABR has an obligation to ensure that proper procedures are maintained to prevent the dissemination of information which is protected from disclosure by

Clinton Dick, Esq. SPR25/3509 Page 3 December 4, 2025 law. This requires careful review and segregation of records before they are produced to a requestor. Segregation and redaction of records often involves the application of multiple exemptions to the public records law to a single record. Some information is simultaneously protected by more than one exemption or different exemptions depending on context or the time of disclosure. The fee estimates provided are for the search, segregation, and redaction process as a whole, and in the view of undersigned, cannot be split up by exemption. In light of the Office’s petition, I find the Office has met its burden to explain how, given the nature of the responsive records, the request could not prudently be completed without redaction or segregation. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv). To the extent the responsive records contain the exempt information as described above, the Office may assess a fee for the segregation and redaction of such exempt material. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv). Appropriate Definitions, Parameters, and Time Frames In Friedman v. Div. of Admin. Law Appeal and Bureau of Special Educ. Appeals, the Suffolk Superior Court, in its Memorandum of Decision and Order on Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, stated: [The requester] has a right to seek public records from his government, provided he does so in a reasonable manner. [The agencies], in turn, have a right not to be inundated with drain-the-ocean records requests, provided they fulfill the basic expectations of the [Public Records Law] in a fair and transparent manner. See Friedman v. Div of Admin. Law Appeal and Bureau of Special Educ. Appeals, Suffolk Sup. No. 2284CV02061-C, at 3 (February 14, 2023). The Court in Friedman noted, “the extraordinary volume of records called for in this case has compelled the Defendants to produce responsive materials in a ‘rolling’ fashion, rather than in accordance with deadlines contemplated by the [Public Records Law].” Id. at 1. The Court stated that: [T]he parties shall be expected to agree upon, to the greatest extent possible, the following: (a) appropriate definitions, time frames, and parameters regarding substance and scope for the identification of requested documents; (b) appropriate search terms to be used for the retrieval of responsive documents; (c) a reasonable time frame for the production of requested documents, if the statute’s presumptive deadlines are not realistic; (d) appropriate rules to govern the withholding of documents falling within the scope of a statutory privilege or privacy doctrine; and (e) an appropriate methodology for computing the reasonable fees that may be charged for responsive document production.

Clinton Dick, Esq. SPR25/3509 Page 4 December 4, 2025 Id. at 2. This office encourages Ms. Griswold and the Office to communicate directly in order to facilitate providing records more efficiently and affordably. Ms. Griswold may consider narrowing the scope of her request to enable the Office to provide the records more efficiently and affordably. The Office must use its superior knowledge of the records to suggest any potential reasonable modifications to the request. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(b)(vii) (an agency shall suggest a reasonable modification of the scope of the request or offer to assist the requestor to modify the scope of the request if doing so would enable the agency to produce the records sought more efficiently and affordably). Any revision to the request would result in the requirement to issue a revised fee estimate. Conclusion Accordingly, I find the Office has met its burden to explain how the response could not be prudently completed without segregation or redaction. Ms. Griswold is advised that she may appeal the Office’s fee estimate within ninety (90) days. See 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1). Please note, Ms. Griswold has the right to seek judicial review of this decision by commencing a civil action in the appropriate superior court. See G. L. c. 66, §§ 10(c), 10(d)(iv)(4), 10A(c). Sincerely, Manza Arthur Supervisor of Records cc: Maddie Griswold