Public Authority agrees to pay legal expenses incurred as a result of its not responding to a Freedom of Information request
Source: Empire Center for Public Policy
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority [MTA] and the Empire Center for Public Policy [Center] have reached an out-of-court settlement in which the MTA acknowledged its failure to respond “in a timely manner” to a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request submitted to it by the Center.
MTA agreed to pay the legal costs and fees incurred by the Center in the course of settling the lawsuit brought by the Center to obtain MTA 2014 payroll records.* The Center said that it had initiated the legal action after more than four months of “delays and missed deadlines” by MTA.
The Center alleged that although some MTA units provided payroll records after lengthy delays, the MTA’s New York City Transit Authority failed to answer the Center’s “appeal of denial,” the last avenue of recourse to exhaust its administrative remedy, before initiating the legal action.
The payroll data are posted and updated annually at http://seethroughny.net/, the Empire Center’s “transparency website.”
* Empire Center for Public Policy v Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York City Transit Authority, Supreme Court, Kings County, Docket 6681/2015