AUGUSTA, Maine — A judge has ordered the insurer representing various Maine counties to pay roughly $130,000 after the state’s high court found it acted in “bad faith” when denying a public records request.
Superior Court Justice Daniel Billings signed a Jan. 16 order that parties received Monday requiring the Maine County Commissioners Association Self-Funded Risk Management Pool to pay $130,600.02 in attorney fees and costs to the Human Rights Defense Center, a prisoner advocacy group that requested the terms of a $30,000 settlement between Kennebec County and a former inmate who alleged a jail officer used excessive force and assaulted him in 2019.
After weeks of correspondence and the group that covers counties’ legal settlement costs saying it believed Kennebec County had provided the only original record, the Human Rights Defense Center sued in 2021 with assistance from the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine.
The Supreme Judicial Court ultimately ruled last August the county risk pool acted in “bad faith” and “mischaracterized” the request while ignoring efforts to correct the issue, which marked the first time a court had defined the bad-faith standard in Maine’s Freedom of Access Act.
Ahead of his order this month, Billings also wrote in December the “fact that this amount of time was required to resolve this matter is ridiculous” and that blame “rests squarely” with the county insurance association.
The order received Monday “proves that Maine’s open records laws have teeth,” ACLU of Maine Legal Director Carol Garvan said in a statement.
“The documents in this case are public, and there is a strong public interest in understanding the use of taxpayer dollars and settlements stemming from allegations of misconduct in Maine jails,” Garvan said.
