The City of Shreveport has responded in a court filing to a lawsuit about a public records request in the water billing error, suggesting thatthe city’s attorney could have been set up to fail during his deposition.
The city's response also suggests that the plaintiff in the lawsuit either withheld 16,000 documents of evidence or presented inconsistencies in his representations to the court.
The original lawsuit, filed in November in the First Judicial District Court, relates to a public records request filed by Michael Wainwright, a former Shreveport attorney who now lives in North Carolina. According to Wainwright’s pre-trial memorandum, the city failed to adequately respond to his records request seeking public documents related toShreveport’s four-tiered water rates and water billings at 17 specific addresses.
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Wainwright's attorney had asserted in a pre-trial memorandum thatthe city“buried” 25 relevant documents within a “document dump” of more than 20,000 unrelated documents.
The case, originally set for a hearing Monday, was delayed when attorney Jerald Harper, representing Wainwright, filed a lengthy motion to strike the city's witnesses that morning. Anew hearing date has not yet been set.
The city’s newest response to the lawsuit, filed by attorney Jennifer McKay on Thursday, requests that Wainwright appear before the court to explain why three flash drives that Wainwright's attorney provided to to the city containfewer than 4,000 documents,not the alleged 20,000.
The city’s response states that Wainwright’s lawsuit made “grandiose claims about the volume and content of the documents produced by the City,” as a result of either “not being accurate” or “withholding an estimated 16,000 records.”
The city’s response also asks why City Attorney William Bradford was asked to find specific documents on the flash drives during his depositionin Februaryfor a document that Wainwright claimed the city had not provided on the flash drives.
Wainwright’s pre-trial memorandum references Bradford’s inability to find the requested documents as proof that the city’s response to the records request was made in“bad faith.”Besides the allegedly missing 16,000 documents, the city'sresponse also indicates other factors may have come into play during Bradford’s search of the documents during his deposition.
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A section of deposition attached to the city’s response indicates that Bradford is a Mac user who had some difficulty, at the onset, of accessing the files through the Dell computer he was givento conduct the search, as well as that the documents provided for perusal were not the same as he had originally produced forthe records request.
“I don’t know what’s occurred since these have been given over. I don’t know what searches or queries have been done,” Bradford said in his February 22 deposition while he was searching the files to find the requested documents. “So I can attempt to, but it’s not dispositive of whether or not all documents were handed over.”
The city response goes on to indicate that during the review of the files, Bradford realized “there were documents missing from the flash drives he was being asked to view.”
But when McKay repeatedly asked to make a copy of the flash drives Bradford was reviewing, she met opposition from Harper, the Shreveport attorney representing Wainwright in the suit.
“I think we’re going to find the documents aren’t here. So I don’t think they’re proof of anything except for the record,” Harper told McKay during the February deposition. “I don’t intendto make these exhibits and I don’t intend to produce them to you now.”
“I’m entitled to a copy of what he has reviewed and looked at,” McKay responded. “I’ve never had anybody refuse to give me a copy of something my client has looked at in a deposition.”
Harper responded in the depositionthat Bradford himself had originallyproduced the records he was searching and that he didn't want to release potential metadata, relating to searches and instructions to his clients, that might be present when copyingthe files. In the deposition, Harper told McKay he would provide a copy but not on the same day of the deposition.
The suit is one of three ongoing lawsuits related to the city water billing situation in which high-volume water users were charged less than the correct rates, according to the four-tiered water billing system adopted by city ordinance in February of 2015.
THE LAWSUITS
Sand Beach Properties LLC v. City of Shreveport
A lawsuit, filed in October in the First Judicial District Court, in which the third party Sand Beach Properties LLC alleges that the City of Shreveport made use of "confidential information"provided by the agency to fix incorrect water bills of approximately 20,000 water customers, without compensating the agency and in violation of conditions set forth in non-disclosure agreements signed or acknowledged by three cityemployees.
Michael Wainwright v. City of Shreveport
A lawsuit, filed in November 2016 in the First Judicial District Court, in which plaintiff Michael Wainwright alleges the city buried or failed to provide information related to his public records request about the tiered water billing system.
Michael Wainwright and T. Scott Pernici v. Ollie Tyler and Brian Crawford
A defamation lawsuit, filed in March 2017 in the First Judicial Court, in which Michael Wainwright and Shreveport businessman Scott Pernici allege that Mayor Ollie Tyler and Chief Administrative Officer Brian Crawford made comments about their involvement with the water billing situation that harmed their reputations.
