TALLAHASSEE – A Leon County circuit judge has dismissed a lawsuit alleging that the Florida Department of Transportation and a contractor did not thoroughly comply with public documents requests about controversial condition-funded flights of migrants to Massachusetts.
Choose Angela Dempsey past 7 days issued two identical decisions rejecting the lawsuit that the non-gain Florida Heart for Governing administration Accountability submitted in October in opposition to the Office of Transportation and Vertol Units Enterprise, Inc.
The middle contended that the section and the contractor violated the state’s general public documents legislation by not absolutely giving asked for files about the September flights of about 50 migrants from San Antonio, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard. The flights, engineered by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, have drawn countrywide scrutiny.
Dempsey concluded that the center did not show the department and Vertol experienced withheld paperwork.
“The load is on the plaintiff to establish they designed a distinct ask for for general public information, that Vertol gained the request, the requested community documents exist and Vertol refused to give them in a well timed fashion,” Dempsey wrote in one particular of the conclusions. “Although plaintiff meets the first and next prongs of the check, there is no proof that the community data exist or that Vertol refused to make public documents in a well timed manner.”
The decisions were being a distinction to an October ruling by Leon County Circuit Decide J. Lee Marsh in a different lawsuit that the heart filed in opposition to DeSantis’ workplace. Marsh dominated that the business did not comply with the community-records legislation. The administration has appealed to the 1st District Courtroom of Charm.
The disputes stem from the Sept. 14 flights, which began in San Antonio, stopped at an airport in the Northwest Florida group of Crestview, and ended up in Martha’s Winery. The DeSantis administration tapped into $12 million that the Legislature furnished to transport undocumented immigrants from Florida.
The center submitted the lawsuit from the Section of Transportation and Vertol soon after publishing general public records requests on Sept. 21 and Sept. 22. While the office and Vertol have furnished files, the middle has contended that they did not totally comply with the requests.
As an example, in a Nov. 14 courtroom doc, the middle stated the data had not been offered about Vertol’s agreement with a subcontractor, Final JetCharters, LLC. Although the state expended $615,000 on the September flights, a few more Vertol acquire orders of $950,000 every are outlined on a condition contracting website for “relocation providers.”
“Even though it is undisputed that Vertol utilized subcontractors for the providers it performed, including a transportation firm recognised as Final JetCharters, LLC, not a single doc in the creation from FDOT or Vertol has any documentation of FDOT’s job manager approving this subcontract, nor is there any history of the prices Vertol paid out to Top JetCharters,” the Nov. 14 courtroom document mentioned.
But Dempsey concluded last 7 days that “there was no illegal refusal to provide general public data by the FDOT.”
In clearing Vertol, Dempsey also took goal at arguments that text messages associated to the contract are community information.
“(Underneath) Florida caselaw, there are lessons of documents that might be in the possession and regulate of Vertol that do not tumble in just the category of a ‘public file,'” she wrote. “The mere reality that a document, this sort of as an email or take a look at information, is element of Vertol’s data files does not make it a ‘public record.’ Even if the text or e mail is downloaded to the agency’s laptop or computer, it does not transform it to a ‘public file.'”
