CHICAGO — Police departments aren’t required by law to give full and complete traffic crash reports to personal injury lawyers looking to drum up new business, according to a divided state appellate court opinion.
Anthony Mancini, of Mancini Law Group, P.C., through his lawyers with the Chicago firm of Loevy & Loevy, sued the Schaumburg Police Department in October 2017 in Cook County Circuit Court, accusing it of violating the Freedom of Information Act by improperly redacting certain information when granting his request to produce two weeks’ worth of police crash reports.
Cook County Judge Franklin Valderrama ruled the department was allowed to black out personal information, identifying those involved in the crashes, when giving the reports to Mancini — even though it gave unredacted information to LexisNexis, a third-party vendor working for the state of Illinois. The judge found Schaumburg police acted in compliance with its Illinois Vehicle Code mandatory reporter obligations.
Mancini appealed, arguing once the department gave unredacted information to LexisNexis, it waived the right to make redactions for any subsequent release. In arguments before Valderrama’s decision, Schaumburg Police said the department “specifically redacted home addresses, driver’s license numbers, personal phone numbers, dates of birth, license plate numbers and policy numbers.” Mancini asserted “other police departments in Illinois” produced reports without blacking out names, addresses and other information.
The Illinois First District Appellate Court ruled on the appeal in an order issued Oct. 19. Justice Daniel Pierce wrote the opinion; Justice John Griffin concurred. Justice Michael Hyman dissented. The decision was issued as an unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule 23, which restricts its use as precedent, except under very limited circumstances permitted by the Supreme Court rule.
In his FOIA request, Pierce wrote, Mancini asked the department to redact driver’s license and license plate numbers, as well as birthdays. That left only a driver’s home address and phone number, plus insurance policy numbers, as the only information at issue. The request for full, unredacted reports came during cross motions for summary judgement, relying on a 1997 Illinois Supreme Court opinion in Lieber v. Board of Trustees of Southern Illinois University.
In that case, however, the issue turned on SIU selectively disclosing information on accepted students to newspapers and churches. But the Schaumburg Police doesn’t volunteer to give information to LexisNexis, it is required to do so under state law controlling the Secretary of State and Department of Transportation.
Mancini countered by arguing the department could submit information directly to the state without going through LexisNexis, which he said sells its information to anyone who asks for $13 and gives $5 back to the village.
“This argument is unpersuasive where it is undisputed that the Vehicle Code requires defendant to send accident reports to the state and the state, in turn, directs that compliance is accomplished by the defendant sending the reports to the State’s agent, LexisNexis,” Pierce wrote.
Pierce further said the evidence record shows unredacted reports, whether for LexisNexis or a direct request to the police, are given only “to those who provide specific information at the time of the request and are entitled — either by way of being involved in the accident, representing someone involved in the accident, or an insurance company identified as insuring someone involved in accident — to the unredacted information therein.”
Hyman said his dissent was based on the merits and the decision to issue under Rule 23. He wrote Mancini adequately showed the department authorized LexisNexis to sell unredacted reports to the public — a voluntary decision outside its mandatory reporting obligations — and said the Illinois Supreme Court needs to amend Rule 23 so one panel member can designate any decision as precedential.
“The dissent distorts the state of the record to support its position,” Pierce wrote. “If there was any admissible evidence that LexisNexis was selling unredacted accident reports, it was incumbent on plaintiff to submit that evidence.”
Schaumburg Police are represented by attorneys Lance C. Malina and Mallory A. Milluzzi, of Klein Thorpe and Jenkins Ltd., of Chicago.