Judging from today’s decision by the Florida Court of Appeals U.S. Department of Energy v. DeSantisthe opinion of Judge Clayton Roberts and Judges Stephanie Ray and Susan Kelsey:
In an August 2022 interview, Gov. DeSantis cited a group of “six or seven sizable legal conservative heavyweights” who serve as his trusted advisers on judicial appointments to the Florida Supreme Court.
In October 2022, appellant emailed an anonymous public records request to the Governor’s Office. The request requires:
Any and all materials, regardless of form, on official equipment or personal equipment used for official duties, including but not limited to communications between Governor Ron DeSantis, Kathy DeSantis, the Governor’s Chief of Staff, their officials Call logs, emails or text messages.Six or seven sizable legal conservative heavyweights” August 25, 2002 with Hugh Hewitt [sic].
The governor’s office acknowledged that the request joins a large number of other requests in the queue. Over the next twenty days, appellant attempted to get the governor’s office to expedite a response. On October 26, the appellants expressed their intention to file a lawsuit and suggested that the governor’s office would resolve the request simply by providing the names of “heavyweights.”
The next day, appellant “J. Doe, anonymous and alone, aka ‘FloridaSupremeCourtPRR@protonmail.com'” filed a petition for a writ of mandamus, a complaint to enforce the Public Records Act, and an ex parte Motion for writ of substitution of mandamus in circuit court.
The court agreed with the trial court that the plaintiff was not entitled to seek performance anonymously under the circumstances:
Appellant sought mandamus relief from the circuit court under Florida Rules of Civil Procedure 1.630, which requires that the petition be filed in the petitioner’s name rather than in the name of state affiliation. Florida Citizen. Page 1.630(b)(3). Because the petition was filed anonymously, the circuit court concluded that it did not meet the requirements of the rule and refused to perform its duty.
Appellant argued that the rule did not prohibit anonymous submissions and should not be read to do so, particularly in the public records context. We do not agree that the appellant’s anonymity before the Circuit Court was reasonable.
Along with Rule 1.630, Florida Rules of Civil Procedure 1.100(c)(1) requires that each complaint have a title containing the names of all parties. In 2016, the Commission noted that Rule 1.100(c) is similar to Federal Rules of Procedure 10(a), which requires that the complaint title bear the names of all parties involved. Federal case law is instructive here. Federal case law recognizes that Rule 10(a) is not only for administrative convenience but also to protect “the public’s legitimate interest in knowing all relevant facts, including the identity of the parties.” It facilitates parties litigating in their own names…
While Florida does not prohibit anonymous petitions, anonymous petitions should be reserved for exceptional circumstances where the public interest outweighs the public interest. Appellant did not seek leave to submit anonymously by filing a motion with the Circuit Court. Even though the issue was raised by the court at the hearing, the appellant did not pursue the issue. The appellant made vague reference to the need to prevent a chilling effect on the public records request and the need to protect the appellant’s livelihood, reasons that may or may not be considered reasons for the exception if properly presented to the court. We agree that appellant’s petition does not comply with Rule 1.630 and affirm the denial of mandamus relief on this basis.
The court also dismissed the petition on the merits:
In order to be entitled to a mandamus order, the applicant must demonstrate that he or she has a clear legal right to perform a clear legal obligation as a public officer and that no other legal remedies are available. Appellant failed to demonstrate that he had a clear legal right to have the Governor’s Office comply with the request he submitted.
Appellant made a broad request for records between a number of individuals over an unspecified period of time. While records custodians may intuitively know some of the background parameters, the core information sought by appellants is the list Governor DeSantis mentioned in a particular interview. To satisfy such a request, the recordkeeper would need to consult with the Governor to determine who exactly he was referring to in this interview. This is similar to asking for information, rather than requesting public records…. “In simple language, there is nothing [section 119.01, Florida Statutes] Or that the Florida Constitution requires agencies to pore over their own records to answer specific questions.
But the court added:
After the petition was rejected on procedural grounds, [trial] The court unnecessarily considered the merits of the petition and ruled that the legal conservative heavyweight’s identity was protected by executive privilege. We expressly decline to rule on the appropriateness of this ruling as irrelevant and unnecessary.
