Teenager Wins Email Suit Against City of Kokomo

An anonymous reader writes "Recently, a 16 year old sued the city of Kokomo, Indiana for access to an email list that he suspected the mayor was mis-using for political purposes. Despite the mayor's refusal to give in, the teenager won the case. The city will have to pay not only for the expensive attorneys they hired, but may have to compensate the 16 year old's pro-bono counsel."

Comments

Now you've done it

[Dr. Eggman]

You can't fight city hall! Or rather, you can fight city hall but the universe will implode if you win. Way to go, I never got to see France.

Re:Now you've done it

[Rufus88]

Way to go, I never got to see France.

You're welcome.

Pro-Bono Compensation

[DamnedNice]

As I understand it, Pro-Bono means the lawyer works for free for a case they believe will win them points and get people to like them (the lawyer, that is). How do you compensate a volunteer? Or am I just totally off base here?

Re:Pro-Bono Compensation

[Anonymous Coward]

In this case its more like a bet. If he lost, he got nothing. The boy wouldn't have to pay, no money gained. But if he won, all the lawyers expensives (paralegals, all those billable hours/minutes/seconds) get a value assigned to them, and under the rules of the law, can be paid by the city, which lost. I think.

Kokomo.. didn't the Eagles sing something about that.. or was that somewhere in hawaii?

Re:Pro-Bono Compensation

[eric_harris_76]

What gets me about the compensating-the-teen's-lawyer angle is that apparently the taxpayer's are paying for it.

Shouldn't -- in a more perfect world -- the people who actually misbehaved pay, not the political entity that they were elected to? Which ultimately means, the taxpayers?

Now to work. And when I get home, I'll see if the issue is addressed in the actual article, or in posts I haven't read yet. -Eric

Hoosier politics 101

[PrinceAshitaka]

Much worse misusing of lists has occurred in Indiana. Before the national "do not call list" was implemented Indiana had one. Charitable organizations did not have to oblige by this list. But the FOP took it one step further, adding all the names on the "do not call list" to their call list. This undoubtedly led to them getting more than a few unlisted numbers in the process.

A better headline...

[Anonymous Coward]

My suggestion for a better headline: "American discovers balls"

Now if only the rest of the country could get around to holding their political leaders accountable for their misdeeds.

Beyond the knee-jerk reaction

[Tx]

Beyond the knee-jerk reaction, which would be "yay for the student, and peoples rights" in my case, I kind of think the city has a point, even if it isn't justified in law. I certainly don't want government institiutions making it easy for people to get such lists out of them, although it should be possible.

Re:Beyond the knee-jerk reaction

[packeteer]

I think nearly everyone who reads into this case will agree with you. Remember when a judge makes a ruling they do not say what is "right" and what is "wrong". In this case the judge simply said that the law did nto cover email address' and if anyone wanted it to they would need to get the legislature to pass a law about it.

I side with the city here but the judge is not out of line making the ruling that was handed down. This is just more evidence of how behind the times our laws are and this is one possible way for spammers and scammers to exploit that.

Re:Pro-bono

[brunes69]

Anyone who is forced to be pro-Bono should be compensated.

I mean... what's with wearing the sunglasses indoors? So pretentious!

Re:Pro-bono

[dzurn]

From TFA:

Groth [teen's counsel] took the case on a pro-bono basis, but [District Judge] Murray asked for an accounting of Groth's fees in her ruling. Groth said Tuesday it's likely he could bill several thousand dollars for the case.

Judge thought that the lawyer deserved some conpensation, so asked the lawyer how much he worked on the case. Sounds fair to me.

what's so good about this?

[F�an�ro]

So he successfully sued the city to give him the email adresses of all people that are on some city mailing list?

So any Spammer can now just request these lists to get free verified addresses?

How is that in the public interest? What laws are the basis for this?

Re:what's so good about this?

[blueg3]

The laws that are the basis for this are evident in the article. It's an issue of public record. In the interests of the people, many government documents are public record. Mailing addresses are protected to prevent abuse, but e-mail addresses are not. More than likely, they should be, just like mailing addresses. However, it's not really the place of the courts to say, "Well, this *should* be protected, but it isn't, so we'll rule as if it is."

So the case they're faced with is that someone asked for a copy of a public record and the city tried to make it difficult with the intent of preventing the person from obtaining the list. They didn't tell him he had to hand-copy it because they didn't have it in electronic form. They did it with the intent of making it unreasonably difficult to acquire a copy of the list, which directly opposes the spirit of the law regarding public record.

The appropriate step is legislative. Extend to e-mail addresses the same protections as mailing addresses.

I wonder

[cosmotron]

I wonder if this is enough of a joy for the Beach Boys to sing about it?

Typical of this town

[kanwisch]

To anyone who lives in or near Kokomo, this type of continuance in the face of facts is not surprising. I suspect the mayor had hoped the kid would give up.

His loss is a community loss in tax dollars, which, when considering that Delphi Automotive, one of the city's two largest corporations is in bankruptcy is quite irresponsible.

Kokomo Resident

[reidhoch]

First off, please don't /. my local newspaper. Secondly this is only one of Matt McKillip's blunders. He has commented how he thinks divorce should be illegal in the city of Kokomo, had a "prayer chapel" installed in a Redi-Med type medical center to prevent a bar from being turned into a strip club, given top jobs to campaign contibutors, changed traditionally public meetings to invite only, etc ...

Really, he is the worst mayor we have had here for quite a while. Delphi and Chrysler, Kokomo's top employers have both recently laid off people. Kokomo is on a downfall and MAtt McKillip isn't helping it.

Re:Kokomo Resident

[reidhoch]

I left Kokomo for 4 years, only moving back to be near family. Most of Kokomo's residents are happy with things because they know nothing else. They just want to graduate high school and get a job at a factory, they really have no aspirations or dreams. Church on Sunday, Work on Monday thru Friday, rinse, repeat.

Re:Kokomo Resident

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! So let me get this straight. Trying to protect the citizens is something to attack the mayor on, right?

First of all, the prayer chapel had been there when the medical facilities was opened. It is part of a Catholic owned hospital chain. Two, there are two other churches within reach.

He is trying to promote family instead of a "get married, if it doesn't work out, who cares?" attitude, since the divorce rate in Kokomo is approx. 50%.

The public meetings? He did so in accordance to law. Those meetings were suppose to be closed.

Maybe those "top campaign" contributers are the most qualified? Oh, and EVERY policitian does that. To take it one step further though, he went through interview processes. He called individuals he trusted for adivce, including my father who is NOT a political figure and who is not wealthy and/or a major campaign contributor. He even asked him if he would like to apply for a position because Mr. McKillip felt he would be appropriate for the position.

The city did not sue. Mr. Nees sued the city. The city had no choice but to go to court.

Now...as far as being the worst mayor. He saved the tax payers $50 mill is first year in office, correct? I also had a top official tell me from before the Mayor even considered running for political office, "If I would have known what shape this city was in when I took this job, I would have brought my coloring books and crayons to the office." That pretty well tells the state of the city before Mr. McKillip was in office.

As for the list, Mr. Nees cannot verify that the list is separate from his campaign list. First, Mr. McKillip does keep two lists. Yes, the addresses on the campaign list are on the city list, but NOT vice versa. I receive two mailings from Mr. McKillip: one from his campaign email that has to do with non-city business and one from the city that has to do with city business. It has been this way since he was in office. Mr. McKillip does not have to give out the campaign list. So how Mr. Nees can compare the two, I'd like to know.

Now, on a personal note. I use to work for Mr. McKillip. He has always been honest and straight forward. Those that accuse him of lying, obviously do not know him. He is has always been willing to give the information that is necessary. He has always taken care of all of his employees beyond what was necessary. In no other job did I receive as much respect, encouragement, and support from my boss. To say that he is a liar, is saying that the office corrupted him. I can still email him and call him and he is always straight up with me. Granted, there are things that he cannot say until the appropriate time, but that does not make him a liar.

So all that being said, yes, he is a human. He does make mistakes. He won't be able to make the popular decision all the time. That is part of being a political figure. Unfortunately, people are unwilling to seek out the truth. It is always the other guys fault.

Maybe he is the worst mayor in Kokomo's history. Maybe he is too honest to be a politician. Maybe he shouldn't put the public first. Take the time to know someone before attacking that person. You might be surprised at what you find...

Re:Kokomo Resident

[virg_mattes]

Wow, you're not much of a spin doctor. I know nothing of the city nor of the state of affairs there, and your argument still reads like it's BS put out by someone who's trying to protect McKillip. Let's take just the first few points:

> Wow! So let me get this straight. Trying to protect the citizens is something to attack the mayor on, right?

You'll have a hard time convincing anyone here that offering a list for hand-copying but not in a more suitable format is "trying to protect the citizens" and not "trying to make the investigation so painful that it'll go away." Moreover, once it became clear that the law wasn't going to support him directly, capituating would be more in the interests of his constiuency than fighting to the bitter and very expensive end.

> He is trying to promote family instead of a "get married, if it doesn't work out, who cares?" attitude, since the divorce rate in Kokomo is approx. 50%.

Firstly, the divorce rate nationwide is around 50 percent, and secondly, there's a huge span between wanting to promote family and commenting that divorce should be criminalized. That he would even think that, much less say it, indicates that he's far too concerned with pushing his brand of morality on others to be entrusted with public office.

> The public meetings? He did so in accordance to law. Those meetings were suppose to be closed.

Is the definition of "public" in public meetings somehow confusing to you? What reasonable argument can you present that meetings of public officials discussing public business shouldn't be open to the public? What could a mayor possibly talk about in meetings that the general public shouldn't have access to? Last I checked, mayors don't discuss military or classified subjects in the course of their duties. It sounds more like he wants to talk about stuff that he'd rather his constituents don't hear about, and because of the above-stated reasons I suspect that means stuff that would get him in trouble if he wasn't allowed to control access. That's unacceptable in a public office.

> Maybe those "top campaign" contributers are the most qualified? Oh, and EVERY policitian does that.

First, you argue that these top contributors got the jobs for being most qualified, then you excuse the behavior by saying "every politician does that". Which is it? Did they get the jobs by being qualified, or should we excuse the cronyism because it's widespread? Didn't your mother teach you that "everyone does it" doesn't make it right?

To put it bluntly, these comments of yours do little to reassure me that you're anything more than a shill. After the list I just reviewed, reading that you think he's an honest man carries no weight because I see nothing in your testimony that leads me to think you're an unbiased or honest commentator. Here's a hint: when you say that even after you no longer work with him, that you can call or email him and he'll respond personally, that says to others that you're a part of his inner circle. Maybe you should check to see whether the average citizen can do that before you try to use it to demonstrate that he's not better to those he knows than everyone else. People who are only honest and open with their friends aren't generally considered honest and open.

Virg

A few things FTA

[corellon13]

"City officials turned down Nees, saying the teen could come in and hand-copy the list. Officials said giving out copies of address lists would leave the newsletter subscribers open to spam and computer viruses."

I know it would've been a major pain to hand copy, but if this was a real effort by the teen to research and uncover abuse, why not just copy them down? I mean this has taken over a year now. He could have hand copied them and been done with it long before now.

"Murray said the law, which restricts access to mailing addresses, doesn't extend to e-mail addresses..."

This tells me that the City wasn't asking the teen to hand copy the addresses just to be jerks about it. They were applying an existing law for mailing addresses to email addresses. Seems reasonable to me.

"Groth took the case on a pro-bono basis, but Murray asked for an accounting of Groth's fees in her ruling. Groth said Tuesday it's likely he could bill several thousand dollars for the case."

Before we attack the bloodsucking lawyer, the compensation for the pro-bono part of this was the judges idea. This goes to show that we probably need some way of reeling in some of these justices. I mean, it's one thing if she wants to pay this lawyer out of her pocket, but she just imposed a huge bill on the tax payers of that city to pay someone who was fine doing this for free (free meaning the publicity).

Re:A few things FTA

[Jafafa Hots]

Reeling in judges? No thanks. That's why we call them JUDGES - we elect them to use their judgement. If we want to just have a firm set of rules, then why have judges at all?

Look at all the damage that's being done by changing sentencing guidelines to sentencing mandates - take the judgement from judges, and you end up with atrocities happening... people getting more time in prison for a joint than for rape, etc. If you don't like your judges' record, vote against them - but don't hamstring them from being able to give a person a break if they deserve it, or treat them MORE harshly than they deserve, just because the occasional thing you see reported makes you think your city can save a few bucks.

Who else read the subject and then...

[Mille Mots]

...heard the voices in their head singing:

Aruba, Jamaica
Ooh I wanna take ya
To Bermuda, Bahama
Come on pretty mama
Key Largo, Montego
Baby why don't we go

Ooh I wanna take you down to Kokomo
We'll get there fast
And then we'll take it slow
That's where we wanna go
Way down to Kokomo

I think I need more coffee this morning. And maybe a lobotomy so I can forget the late 80s/early 90s once and for all. The booze doesn't seem to be working.

Re:Who else read the subject and then...

[mrjb]

And maybe a lobotomy so I can forget the late 80s/early 90s once and for all. The booze doesn't seem to be working.
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

City of Kokomo.

[BillGodfrey]

I guess he had no particular place to go.

(Two cymbals and a snare drum fall down a canyon.)

Freedom of Information Act

[eldavojohn]

Frankly, I'm surprised the city tried to contest this at all.

Aside from the Freedom of Information Act, I could think of a ton of good reasons why this kid should get this or why anyone should be able to get a list like this. Whatever happened to the good old days where we were encouraged to snail mail every single person representing us in office?

When I was younger, I was pretty dissatisfied with the insane food prices at my high school. Even worse was the fact that my parents were making me pay for my own food. So I threatened the school with the Freedom of Information Act and demanded to see all food related reciepts and documents including pay and taxes. They gave me two huge boxes full of crap and I spent one night sorting through everything. And, surprisingly enough, after I sorted through and found out how much they were paying Arrowmark or whoever the food service provider was--it just didn't make sense. The local grocery store had better prices.

You're thinking "contingent fee"

[hey!]

"Pro bono" on the other hand is short for pro bono publicum -- "for the good of the public".

It's a quaint idea, doing something because it's the right thing to do. I don't doubt that increased notoriety is an incentive for pro bono work, although many pro bono cases are ones that will never garner much attention. In this case, I think the judge was eager to punish the defendant, and ordered the pro bono attorney's fees calculated so he'd have an excuse for making the punishment heavier.

This sounds kind of weird to me...

[hot soldering iron]

After reading TFA, is seems to me the whole thing was about who gets to be lazy. The city officials said that he could have the list, but he had to hand copy it himself. He sued to get them to just give him a copy of the list, and compensate his lawyer.

I can sort of see his point. He was comparing two lists: a city newsletter, and one the mayor was using to build up political support. If he hand copied it, they could alway say he made a mistake or changed it, there would be no tracability. But an actual, official copy couldn't be denied. Now I understand why the mayor didn't want to give it out. It was a case of CYA.

Hand Copying allowed?

[austinpoet]

What I don't understand is how the government can make a distinction between hand-copying and other forms of copying.

What if I have a hand-held scanner (as was posted the other day on /. and have existed for years)? Is that hand-copying? What if I use a whole candy-machine full of silly puddy? Can I use carbon paper too?

I mean I realize that the government can legislatively make a distinction between a 3lb carrot and a 5lb carrot, but do they think they are being clever with this? Is this security through frustration/writers-cramp? Is there some time limit placed on the copier?

Does the government employ 1000s of workers to hand-compile the list initially?

The Rest of the Anecdote (for MagicChex)

[eldavojohn]

Ok, ok, I didn't think the result was really that important but ...

I was working with three other guys to try and figure out what suggestions to make. And also let me say that this was a high school (not a gradeschool) and there were some insanely pricey healthy foods but super cheap candy and twinkies as you went up to the cash register.

We contacted Hy-Vee (our local grocery store) and asked them how difficult (and how expensive) it would be to make regular shipments of real fruit and real food to the cafeteria. It turned out to be quite a bit cheaper than shipping it 3 hours from the nearest metropolis--imagine that!

So when we approached them with this idea, they said it wasn't that simple. That they had contracts with their distributor and they couldn't break them--which was strange because they could bring in Dominos pizza every friday.

So, in the end, they made token price adjustments on the foods to make everyone happy. A nickel here, a dime there. But the prices kept going up until they were eventually were higher than they were before. They blame that on inflation. Then I graduated and just kind of accepted that crap like that happens in hick towns like the one where I grew up.

obligatory grammar correction

[Brunellus]

actually, it's "pro bono publico"-- since the adjective (publico) modifies the object (bono) of the preposition (pro), it must agree in case (in this case, ablative).

I might not know a lick about C syntax, but I can certainly remember my Latin....

Re:obligatory grammar correction

[mjpaci]

Great. That's what Slashdot needs, Latin Grammar Nazis.

Hic, haec, hoc
Huius, huius, huis ... ...

--Mike

Re:Compensate pro bono counsel?

[Secrity]

The city was the appropriate entity to sue. The suit was about the city refusing to provide the list of email addresses that the kid wanted in order to investigate something the kid thought the mayor was doing wrong. The mayor may have pushed for the city to fight turning over the list, but the the decision to fight the kid's lawsuit would involve many other people, including the city's attorney. The situation was not as simple as it may seem, the whole decision depended upon whether email address lists have the same privacy protection as physical email lists. I think that this story could easily be spun into a loss of personal privacy.

Not the first stone cast in this fight....

[bjq]

This isn't the first round between McKillip and Nees. Nees had previously created a documentary film about McKillip entitled Words of Sedition: how the highest levels of power shut down free speech in Kokomo.

You can find more info on this case from when it was filed in this Indianapolis Star article.

You can also read more about it on Nees' personal website.

You can watch Words of Sedition online as well.

I, for one

[Brunellus]

Ego, ex mea parte, saluto dominos nostros novos grammaticos!

Move over, Michael Moore

[Slightly Askew]

I am sure we have not heard the last of this. It would not surprise me that the mayor would use the city mailing list for personal political gain, and once Ryan has the list in hand, I'm sure he will not be hesitant about making public his findings.

Check out his website for more details about this case, as well as his movie about this administration's other questionable practices. Quite impressive collection, especially for a 16 year old. Reminds me of a young Alex Jones.

obligatory python reference

[ephemeraleuphoria]

Brian is writing a slogan on a wall, oblivious to the Roman patrol approaching from behind. The slogan is "ROMANES EUNT DOMUS".

Centurion: What's this thing? "ROMANES EUNT DOMUS"? "People called Romanes they go the house?"
Brian: It... it says "Romans go home".
Centurion: No it doesn't. What's Latin for "Roman"?

Brian hesitates

Centurion: Come on, come on!
Brian: (uncertain) "ROMANUS".
Centurion: Goes like?
Brian: "-ANUS".
Centurion: Vocative plural of "-ANUS" is?
Brian: "-ANI".
Centurion: (takes paintbrush from Brian and paints over) "RO-MA-NI". "EUNT"? What is "EUNT"?
Brian: "Go".
Centurion: Conjugate the verb "to go"!
Brian: "IRE". "EO", "IS", "IT", "IMUS", "ITIS", "EUNT".
Centurion: So "EUNT" is ...?
Brian: Third person plural present indicative, "they go".
Centurion: But "Romans, go home!" is an order, so you must use the ...?

He lifts Brian by his short hairs

Brian: The ... imperative.
Centurion: Which is?
Brian: Um, oh, oh, "I", "I"!
Centurion: How many Romans? (pulls harder)
Brian: Plural, plural! "ITE".

Centurion strikes over "EUNT" and paints "ITE" on the wall

Centurion: "I-TE". "DOMUS"? Nominative? "Go home", this is motion towards, isn't it, boy?
Brian: (very anxious) Dative?

Centurion draws his sword and holds it to Brian's throat

Brian: Ahh! No, ablative, ablative, sir. No, the, accusative, accusative, ah, DOMUM, sir.
Centurion: Except that "DOMUS" takes the ...?
Brian: ... the locative, sir!
Centurion: Which is?
Brian: "DOMUM".
Centurion: (satisfied) "DOMUM"...

He strikes out "DOMUS" and writes "DOMUM"

Centurian: ..."-MUM". Understand?
Brian: Yes sir.
Centurion: Now write it down a hundred times.
Brian: Yes sir, thank you sir, hail Caesar, sir.
Centurion: (saluting) Hail Caesar. If it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.
Brian: (very relieved) Oh thank you sir, thank you sir, hail Caesar and everything, sir!

Zoinks, Scoob!

[AragornSonOfArathorn]

I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids!!

Now, git off my lawn!

Critical mass

[Brunellus]

Language learning in my experience, requires a certain "critical mass" before it becomes useful, fun, or amusing. Two semesters of anything is rarely enough.

Add to this the dismal state of language instruction generally, and Latin instruction in particular, in American schools. Most people have almost nothing to show for two semesters of Latin these days: they can't even read or write simple sentences, or have any appreciation for the language, because, frankly, they haven't put enough work in.

This is true for all language learning in America, I think, and for me, particularly appalling when it comes to Spanish (my other language). Standards are so diluted as to be meaningless, and there is no content to language education. Generations of otherwise-bright kids are being doomed to lives of dull monolingualism, with all of its consequences: intolerance, ignorance, and an inability to compete in the global marketplace.

Re:"Kokomo"

[indianajones428]

Nope, it was recorded in '88 for Cocktail, and was the Beach Boys first #1 hit in 22 years.

(see these wikipedia articles