The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by Jackson Way Properties Limited and James Patrick Kennedy over the refusal of a broad Freedom of Information request to Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council. It affirmed the High Court order, leaving in place the Information Commissioner’s decision to uphold the refusal.
The request, made in February 2017, sought records of communications about the company, its land and title, compensation claims, and related legal proceedings. The council identified 72 files across six departments and 9,291 potentially relevant emails from 2006 onwards. The records dated back to 1998. It estimated that examining them would take about 262 hours, including work by six staff members and a review of the emails.
The council refused the request under section 15(1)(c) of the Freedom of Information Act 2014, which permits refusal where retrieving and examining records would cause substantial and unreasonable interference with or disruption of an FOI body’s work. The Information Commissioner upheld that refusal in January 2019. The High Court dismissed the company and Kennedy’s appeal in February 2020, and they then appealed to the Court of Appeal on points of law.
The appellants argued, among other things, that “work” should be limited to the council’s statutory functions, that substantial and unreasonable disruption required separate consideration, and that the council had not provided enough evidence about its resources and staffing. The Court of Appeal rejected those arguments. It held that “work” includes the activities of the council’s FOI and legal departments, and that the Commissioner may assess substantiality and reasonableness together where the evidence supports both.
The court said the record numbers, the time and staff needed to examine them, and the effect on the council’s departments provided an adequate evidential basis for the decision. It also held that the possibility of outsourcing some work did not erase the impact that processing the request would have had when assessed at the time it was made.
The appeal was dismissed in full and the High Court order affirmed. The court stated its preliminary view that the respondent was entitled to the costs of the appeal. The appellants had 14 days from electronic delivery of the judgment to seek a costs hearing; if no application was made, the order was to be perfected after that period.