On April 11, 2024, the Washington State Supreme Court decided Cousins v. State, setting new criteria for how public agencies can sufficiently close public records requests to start the one-year statute of limitations under the Public Records Act (“PRA”).

The Court in Cousins attempts to address situations where an agency closes a request or provides answers to follow-up questions after such closure, with language that is ambiguous or not objectively sufficient to notify the requestor that the agency no longer intends to further address their request. It is no longer sufficient for agencies to simply state that a request is “closed” without providing an explanation of what that means.

The Court in Cousins determined that a sufficient closing letter sent by an agency, for purposes of starting the one-year statute of limitations, must be written in plain language targeted to a lay audience and should include at least the following information:

1. how the PRA request was fulfilled and why the agency is now closing the request;
2. that the PRA’s one-year statute of limitations to seek judicial review has started to run because the agency does not intend to further address the request; and
3. that the requester may ask follow-up questions within a reasonable time frame, which may be explicitly specified by the agency.

Per the Court’s decision in Cousins, if a requester asks timely follow-up questions in response to a closing letter, the agency is not required to search for additional records, although it has discretion to do so. If the requester asks timely follow-up questions and the agency does not intend to further address the request, the agency should explicitly say so and reiterate that the statute of limitations has started to run. If an agency produces records after issuing a sufficient closure letter, this ordinarily will not restart the one-year limitations period but may be relevant to the court in assessing the agency’s liability or penalties or equitable tolling in some circumstances.

In light of the new criteria set forth in Cousins, public agencies should review and revise their PRA closure letter templates to ensure they include language sufficient to trigger the statute of limitations under the PRA. Agencies should also consider reviewing recently closed requests, and requests where the requestor submitted follow-up inquiries, to ensure sufficient language was provided to trigger the statute of limitations period. If your agency needs assistance drafting or reviewing its PRA closure letters, please contact Allison Beard at CSD Attorneys at Law P.S. at abeard@csdlaw.com or 360-306-3013.