Access to Information Orders
Decision Information
• Amount of legal fees charged to the City of Waterloo relating to litigation.
• Section 12 (solicitor-client privilege) - not upheld.
• City ordered to disclose the record.
Decision Content
NATURE OF THE APPEALS:
This is my final order in connection with Appeals MA08-112 and MA08-113. I previously issued Interim Order MO-2573-I, in which I dealt with all of the records at issue except for one record that was responsive to part 5 of the request in both appeals. That record is addressed in this order. The background of Appeals MA08-112 and MA08-113 is extensively set out in Order MO-2573-I and I will not repeat it here, except as relevant to the issues remaining to be decided.
The record that remains outstanding after Order MO-2573-I (referred to in this order as “the record”) is a one-page document created by the City, setting out the total amount billed to the City for legal fees in four lawsuits undertaken by the City. The figure represents aggregated legal expenses in connection with these lawsuits up to and including May 5, 2008.
The appeals were placed on hold at the City’s request with respect to this record. The City asked that this be done pending the outcome of its application for judicial review in connection with Order MO-2294, in which Adjudicator Laurel Cropley ordered the City to disclose billing information about the same litigation that is the subject of the requests at issue here, up to the date of the requests dealt with in that order, which were submitted in 2004. The information ordered disclosed was the total dollar amount on each page of a total of 11 invoices for legal services, without any additional information.
Because the fees dealt with in Order MO-2294 were subsumed in the dollar amount of legal expenses set out in the record, I agreed to the City’s request to place them on hold, as regards that record, pending the outcome of the City’s application for judicial review. The application was recently dismissed in City of Waterloo v. Cropley and Higgins (“Waterloo v. Cropley et al.”).[1] The information at issue in that case has now been disclosed by the City.
The request in Order MO-2294 was submitted by a journalist, while the requests under consideration in the appeals dealt with in Appeals MA08-112 and MA08-113 were submitted by counsel for a number of parties to the litigation to which the fees relate. The journalist subsequently submitted another request for legal billing information, which resulted in Appeal MA08-232. The same record that is being considered in this order is also at issue in that appeal, which is addressed in Order MO-2601, issued concurrently with this order.
[1] 2010 ONSC 6522 (Div. Ct.). This judgment also dismissed the City’s application for judicial review of my previous Order MO-2481, which concerned a separate request for legal fees paid by the City in connection with the access-to-information request that ultimately led to Order MO-2294.
[2] See citation at footnote 1.
[3] 2003 SCC 67, [2003] 3 S.C.R. 193
[4] [2005] O.J. No. 941 (C.A.)
[5] See citation at footnote 4.
[6] See citation at footnote 1.
[7] See citation at footnote 3.
[8] See citation at footnote 4.
[9] [2007] O.J. No. 2769 (Div. Ct.)
[10] See citation at footnote 3.
[11] Order PO-2484, upheld on judicial review in Attorney General 2007, cited above at footnote 9. See also Attorney General 2005, cited above at footnote 4.
[12] See citation above at footnote 3.
[13] [1982], 1 S.C.R. 860 (S.C.C.)
[14] See citation at footnote 3.
[15] See citation at footnote 13.
[16] See citation at footnote 3.
[17] See citation at footnote 4.
[18] See citation at footnote 9.
[19] See citation at footnote 1.
[20] See footnote 2, above.
[21] See citation at footnote 3.
[22] See footnote 9, above.
[23] See footnote 1, above.