State ex rel. Harris v. Put-in-Bay Police Dept.

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State ex rel. Harris v. Put-in-Bay Police Dept., Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-3804.] NOTICE This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in an advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports. Readers are requested to promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 65 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or other formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is published. SLIP OPINION NO. 2026-OHIO-3804 THE STATE EX REL . HARRIS v. PUT-IN-BAY POLICE DEPARTMENT. [Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as State ex rel. Harris v. Put-in-Bay Police Dept., Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-3804.] Mandamus—Public-records requests—R.C. 149.43—Relator failed to rebut public office’s attestations that it provided him with all records responsive to his public-records requests, and public office provided responsive records within a reasonable time—Writ and relator’s requests for statutory damages and court costs denied. (No. 2025-0367—Submitted September 16, 2025—Decided September 30, 2026.) IN MANDAMUS. __________________ DEWINE, J., authored the opinion of the court, which FISCHER, DETERS, HAWKINS, and SHANAHAN, JJ., joined. KENNEDY, C.J., concurred in part and dissented in part, with an opinion. BRUNNER, J., concurred in part and dissented in  SUPREME COURT OF OHIO part and would award relator $1,000 in statutory damages as to the March 2024 public-records request. DEWINE, J. {¶ 1} This is an original action in mandamus brought under the public- records statute, R.C. 149.43. We are asked by Lionel Harris to direct the Put-in- Bay Police Department to provide him with copies of records responsive to two public-records requests that Harris sent a year apart. Harris has not rebutted the police department’s attestations that it provided all responsive records, so we deny the writ. {¶ 2} Harris also seeks $2,000 in statutory damages and an award of court costs, arguing that the department’s response time was unreasonable. Because Harris has not demonstrated his entitlement to statutory damages by clear and convincing evidence, we decline to award statutory damages. We also deny Harris’s request for court costs. I. BACKGROUND {¶ 3} Harris is incarcerated at the North Central Correctional Complex. On March 30, 2024, using a contraband cellphone that he had hidden under his mattress, he accessed an email account associated with the name louisethomaslt83@gmail.com. Harris caused an email from that address to be sent to an email address at the Put-in-Bay Police Department that had been designated to receive public-records requests: records@pibpolice.com. The email asked for ten categories of documents, including the department’s records-retention schedule and policy, personnel and payroll records of the police chief, budget materials, use- of-force reports, the department’s booking-and-release policy, the current bond register, and racism complaints against patrol officers. {¶ 4} Not surprisingly, given the unorthodox method of transmission, this email ended up in a spam file in the police department’s email. No one at the police 2  January Term, 2026 department was aware of the email and Harris did nothing to follow up on his request. {¶ 5} On March 3, 2025, Harris allegedly penned another public-records request to the police department. This time, the request purports to have come from an email account connected to his own name.1 In that email, Harris requested five items: (1) “All administrative leave or reinstatements issued to any employees of the Put-in-Bay Police Department from . . . September 2023 through September 2024”; (2) the “Annual Budget Report for 2024”; (3) the “Payroll record – employee earnings for [the] current police chief from 2024 to present”; (4) “All complaints against Put-in-Bay patrol officers for September 2023”; and (5) “All use of force reports for September 2023.” {¶ 6} Ten days after he sent the March 2025 request, Harris commenced this action, asking for a writ of mandamus ordering the police department to respond to both requests. Harris attached to the mandamus complaint copies of both his March 2025 request and the March 2024 request from the Louise Thomas email account. {¶ 7} At that point, the police department searched its spam file and found the Louise Thomas email. Within days of receiving the complaint, the police department, through the village solicitor, issued written responses to both requests and provided Harris with responsive records. {¶ 8} In the solicitor’s letter responding to the first request, Harris was informed that the email had been “delivered directly into a spam file” within the village’s email system and had “not [been] viewed by anyone” until after the police department was served with Harris’s mandamus complaint. The solicitor provided copies of responsive records for five of the ten requested items and stated that no records exist that are responsive to Harris’s request for the records-retention 1. As discussed later, the screenshot submitted as evidence makes the exact email address hard to decipher. The evidence submitted shows an email from “Lionel Ha…” to “records.” 3  SUPREME COURT OF OHIO schedule, the records-retention policy, the use-of-force reports, the booking-and- release policy, or racism complaints against village police officers. {¶ 9} The solicitor responded to Harris’s March 2025 public-records request in a separate letter, providing him copies of records responsive to his request for the 2024 annual budget report and the police chief’s payroll record, and explaining that no responsive records exist for the rest. {¶ 10} In response to Harris’s mandamus complaint, the police department filed a motion to dismiss. We denied the motion, ordered the police department to file an answer, and granted an alternative writ, setting the schedule for the parties’ submission of evidence and merit briefs. 2025-Ohio-1876. II. ANALYSIS A. The Recent Amendments to R.C. 149.43(C) Do Not Apply {¶ 11} The police department argues that recent amendments to Ohio’s Public Records Act, R.C. 149.43, foreclose Harris from obtaining a writ of mandamus or statutory damages. But those amendments—contained in 2024 Sub.H.B. No. 265 (effective Apr. 9, 2025) and 2025 Am.Sub.H.B. No. 96 (effective Sept. 30, 2025)—imposing additional procedural requirements for mandamus actions and barring inmates from receiving statutory damages apply only “prospectively to any mandamus action filed on or after” the date those amendments became effective. State ex rel. Bates v. Jenkins, 2026-Ohio-1994, ¶ 19. Because Harris filed this action on March 13, 2025, before the amendments’ effective dates, the amendments do not apply. Id.2 B. Mandamus {¶ 12} A writ of mandamus is an extraordinary remedy that is appropriate to issue in public-records cases when a relator shows that a respondent has failed 2. This opinion thus applies the version of the Public Records Act enacted in 2024 Sub.S.B. No. 29 (effective Oct. 24, 2024), unless otherwise noted. 4  January Term, 2026 to comply with its obligations under R.C. 149.43(B). See State ex rel. Parker Bey v. Byrd, 2022-Ohio-476, ¶ 9. The Public Records Act provides that “upon request by any person, a public office or person responsible for public records shall make copies of the requested public record available to the requester at cost and within a reasonable period of time.” R.C. 149.43(B)(1). To obtain the writ, the requester must establish by clear and convincing evidence a clear legal right to the records requested and a corresponding clear legal duty on the part of the public office to provide them. Byrd at ¶ 9. {¶ 13} Harris has failed to establish that the police department did not comply with the Public Records Act. The record demonstrates that the police department, upon becoming aware of Harris’s initial request, promptly investigated its spam system. It then located the request and provided Harris with responsive records and a letter explaining the status of each requested item. It additionally responded promptly to the March 2025 request, again providing responsive records and a letter of explanation. {¶ 14} In response to the alternative writ, the police department included in its submission of evidence affidavit testimony from one of its sworn peace officers and from the village solicitor’s support specialist stating that all records responsive to both of Harris’s public-records requests were produced to him. As a general rule, once a public office has provided a public-records requester with copies of the requested records, a mandamus claim is moot. State ex rel. Mobley v. LaRose, 2024- Ohio-1909, ¶ 7. But Harris argues that the police department did not fully respond to either request, so mootness does not apply and a writ of mandamus should issue. We turn next to that argument. 1. Harris’s March 2024 Request {¶ 15} In response to Harris’s March 2024 request, the police department stated that the use-of-force reports and the booking-and-release policy requested by Harris do not exist. Harris argues that this response is “not credible,” asserting that 5  SUPREME COURT OF OHIO it is “unfathomable” that a modern police department would lack a booking-and- release policy and “unbelievable” that no use-of-force reports exist. He argues that these types of reports are subject to disclosure under this court’s decision in State ex rel. Standifer v. Cleveland, 2022-Ohio-3711. {¶ 16} Harris’s arguments are insufficient. To overcome the police department’s affidavit evidence that all responsive records have been produced, Harris must present “clear and convincing evidence showing a genuine issue of fact that additional responsive records exist,” State ex rel. Frank v. Clermont Cty. Prosecutor, 2021-Ohio-623, ¶ 15. He has not done so. His arguments instead rest solely on speculation, which is inadequate to establish the existence of additional records. See State ex rel. McCaffrey v. Mahoning Cty. Prosecutor’s Office, 2012- Ohio-4246, ¶ 16. {¶ 17} Harris’s reliance on Standifer also does not assist him. In that case, use-of-force reports existed because officers were required to complete them under departmental policy. See Standifer at ¶ 2-3. There is no evidence offered in this case showing that the Put-in-Bay Police Department maintains a similar policy or records. See State ex rel. Ware v. Akron Police Dept., 2025-Ohio-1198, ¶ 12 (distinguishing Standifer and denying writ because no evidence showed that the requested records existed). Harris has therefore failed to meet his burden as to the March 2024 request. 2. Harris’s March 2025 Request {¶ 18} Harris likewise challenges the police department’s response to his March 2025 request—specifically, its statement that no responsive records exist as to his request for “administrative leave or reinstatement[]” records issued to employees from September 2023 through September 2024. He relies on Wilson v. Russo, 2022 WL 911271 (N.D.Ohio Mar. 29, 2022), in support of his argument that such records must exist. {¶ 19} Harris’s reliance on Wilson is misplaced. That case, which arose out 6  January Term, 2026 of a federal civil-rights action, referred to a former Put-in-Bay police chief who had been placed on administrative leave in 2020. Id. at *1-2. The administrative leave in Wilson occurred more than three years before the time frame covered by Harris’s request. Wilson does not provide clear and convincing evidence that responsive records exist in this case for the requested period and with respect to the current police chief. Accordingly, Harris has not satisfied his burden with respect to the March 2025 request. {¶ 20} Because Harris has failed to rebut the police department’s evidence that all responsive records have been produced for both of his public-records requests, he has not established a clear legal right to additional relief or a corresponding duty on the part of the police department. Therefore, we deny his request for a writ of mandamus. C. Statutory Damages {¶ 21} Harris argues that he should recover statutory damages because the police department unreasonably delayed in responding to both requests. R.C. 149.43(C)(2) permits an award of statutory damages when a requester establishes that (1) he transmitted a public-records request by hand delivery, electronic submission, or certified mail, (2) he made the request “to the public office or person responsible for the requested public records,” (3) he fairly described the documents being requested, and (4) the public office failed to comply with its obligations under R.C. 149.43(B). The public office’s obligations include making public records available “within a reasonable period of time.” R.C. 149.43(B)(1). 1. Statutory Damages for the March 2024 Request {¶ 22} To be entitled to statutory damages, Harris must establish that he has been aggrieved by the police department’s failure to comply with an obligation imposed by the Public Records Act. R.C. 149.43(C)(3); Anderson v. Wilson, 2025- Ohio-493, ¶ 12. It is Harris’s burden to “prov[e] his entitlement to statutory damages by clear and convincing evidence,” id. at ¶ 15. So here Harris must 7  SUPREME COURT OF OHIO demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that the police department failed to satisfy its obligation to make copies of public records available “within a reasonable period of time,” R.C. 149.43(B)(1); see also State ex rel. Grim v. New Holland, 2024-Ohio-4822, ¶ 6. {¶ 23} In enacting the Public Records Act, the General Assembly chose not to provide a defined period (e.g., 30 days) by which a public office must respond to a public-records request. Instead, it requires a response within a “reasonable period of time,” R.C. 149.43(B)(1). Reasonableness is a question for the fact-finder that depends on an assessment of the public office’s conduct based on “all of the pertinent facts and circumstances.” State ex rel. Morgan v. Strickland, 2009-Ohio- 1901, ¶ 10; see also State ex rel. Kesterson v. Kent State Univ., 2018-Ohio-5108, ¶ 16. Our caselaw instructs that our assessment of the reasonableness of the response time properly considers the requester’s conduct because “R.C. 149.43 contemplates that the requester and the public-records custodian cooperate in fulfilling a request.” Morgan at ¶ 18. {¶ 24} The police department responded to Harris’s March 2024 request 13 months after it was emailed. We have suggested that the absence of a response for over a year, without justification, constitutes a violation of the timely response requirement in R.C. 149.43(B)(1). See State ex rel. Horton v. Kilbane, 2022-Ohio- 205, ¶ 16-22. But based on the unique facts of this case, we conclude that Harris has failed to meet his burden of showing that the police department’s response time was unreasonable. {¶ 25} Here, the delay was not the result of any neglect or misfeasance by the police department. Rather, the reason that the police department didn’t reply more quickly to Harris’s request was because it was unaware of Harris’s request since it had been diverted to a spam file. It was not unreasonable for the police department to not respond to a request that it was unaware of having received. And 8  January Term, 2026 once it was made aware, it promptly responded.3 {¶ 26} The concurring-and-dissenting opinion argues our decision in State ex rel. Ware v. Akron, 2021-Ohio-624, “categorically reject[s]” our holding here. Concurring-and-dissenting opinion, ¶ 88-93, 111. That case involved the delivery of a public-records request by certified mail to the administrative assistant of the public office; the administrative assistant died before informing anyone of the request. The public office did not respond to the request until nine months later, once the requester filed a complaint for a writ of mandamus. We rejected the public office’s argument that it responded within a reasonable time, finding the death of the assistant did not excuse the nine-month delay in responding to the certified-mail request because the public office had been made aware of the request. See Ware, 2021-Ohio-624, at ¶ 18. {¶ 27} The concurring-and-dissenting opinion cites Ware, 2021-Ohio-624, for the proposition that “the fact that the city misplaced the public-records request did not relieve the city of its duty to provide the requested records within a reasonable time” of the request’s transmission and that the police department here similarly “lost track” of Harris’s email. Concurring-and-dissenting opinion at ¶ 89, 92. But that opinion’s own description of Ware, 2021-Ohio-624, proves our point. To “misplace” or “lose track” of something, one must be aware of the thing in the first place. The public office in Ware, 2021-Ohio-624, could misplace the request only because it had been aware of the request in the first place. But that did not happen here. When Harris’s email went to the spam file, nobody in the police 3. The concurring-and-dissenting opinion accuses us of creating a “found later” exception to the Public Records Act. See concurring-and-dissenting opinion at ¶ 81-87, 111. We do no such thing. While that opinion focuses on the duty to produce records “‘upon request’” (emphasis in original), id. at ¶ 54, 83, quoting R.C. 149.43(B)(1), our review here is focused on whether that production was done “within a reasonable time,” R.C. 149.43(B)(1). And whether a response was made within a reasonable time “depends upon all of the pertinent facts and circumstances,” Morgan, 2009-Ohio- 1901, at ¶ 10, which certainly includes whether the public office was aware of the public-records request in the first place. 9  SUPREME COURT OF OHIO department was aware of its delivery, so the police department never “misplaced” or “lost track” of the email and it became aware of the request only when Harris filed this mandamus action, at which point the police department promptly responded to the public-records request. {¶ 28} The concurring-and-dissenting opinion places the “responsibility for the misdirection of Harris’s 2024 request” on the police department, speculating misfeasance on the police department’s part based on how it “set the inbox-control parameters on its public-records email account.” Concurring-and-dissenting opinion at ¶ 95. But nothing in the record suggests the police department did anything other than create an email address designated to receive public-records requests.4 And we don’t know exactly why Harris’s email went to the police department’s spam file. But we do know the email contained a URL leading to a different page and was sent from a contraband cellphone in a prison to a police department, presumably from a phone that wasn’t registered to Harris, and from an email account with someone else’s name. We also know that email addresses without proper authentication or a legitimate sender history, or that contain URLs as text leading to a different page, are some of the many triggers for a spam filter. See MailChimp, How Spam Triggers Impact Your Email Open Rates, https://mailchimp.com/resources/spam-triggers/ (accessed Jan. 5, 2026) [https://perma.cc/G5T6-YQCK]; Mailtrap, The Whys and the Hows of Email Spam Filters (Feb. 16, 2024), https://mailtrap.io/blog/spam-filters/ (accessed Aug. 22, 2026) [https://perma.cc/U8FS-TJNF]. {¶ 29} Given the numerous indicia of suspicion, it should not have come as a surprise to Harris or anyone else that the email was diverted to a spam file. Yet, 4. The concurring-and-dissenting opinion goes further, arguing the police department “should have changed the filter’s settings . . . to ensure legitimate emails, like Harris’s d[o] not inadvertently get overlooked.” Concurring-and-dissenting opinion at ¶ 97. But no such duty appears in the Public Records Act. 10  January Term, 2026 for almost a year Harris did nothing to follow up or make sure that his request had been delivered. And as we have explained, “[a] public-records requester has an obligation to cooperate with the public-records custodian[’s] fulfilling a request, including an obligation to inform the public agency when [he] feels that a request has been incomplete or slow.” State ex rel. DiFranco v. S. Euclid, 2015-Ohio-4914, ¶ 25. {¶ 30} In sum, Harris has not met his burden of demonstrating by clear and convincing evidence that the police department unreasonably delayed its response to his request. Accordingly, considering all the “pertinent facts and circumstances,” Morgan, 2009-Ohio-1901, at ¶ 10, statutory damages are not warranted for the March 2024 request. 2. Statutory Damages for the March 2025 Request {¶ 31} Statutory damages are likewise unwarranted for Harris’s March 2025 request. First, a requester seeking statutory damages must prove by clear and convincing evidence the method of delivery of the request. State ex rel. McDougald v. Greene, 2020-Ohio-5100, ¶ 22. Harris has not met that burden. Unlike the March 2024 request, the police department does not acknowledge that it received Harris’s March 2025 request by email. Rather, the police department responded to Harris’s March 2025 request within days of receiving his mandamus complaint, referring to the March 2025 request merely as “the communication attached as Exhibit B to the Affidavit” in Harris’s complaint. The mere fact the police department referred to Harris’s exhibit B as an “email,” see concurring-and- dissenting opinion at ¶ 66, 68, doesn’t change the fact that the police department has averred that it received the alleged communication only as an exhibit attached to Harris’s complaint. And contrary to that opinion’s assertion otherwise, nowhere does the police department admit it found the March 2025 request in its email account. See id. at ¶ 73. While an employee for the police department does aver that he discovered the March 2024 request in the department’s spam file, regarding 11  SUPREME COURT OF OHIO the March 2025 request, this same employee states only that he worked to “assure that an appropriate response to the communication attached as Exhibit B” to Harris’s complaint was provided. Not once does he aver that he found the March 2025 request anywhere other than Harris’s mandamus complaint. {¶ 32} Furthermore, while Harris has submitted a screenshot of what purports to be an email, the screenshot lacks clear sender and recipient information—it shows only that it was sent from “Lionel Ha. . . ” to “records,” with the recipient’s email address appearing only in the body of the email, and does not demonstrate that the email was actually sent to the police department. This is significantly different from his March 2024 request, which clearly identifies in the header of the email the email address from which Harris sent the request, the email address to which the request was sent, a subject line, and an indicator that it was a forwarded email. And Harris does not attest in the affidavit he submitted that he sent the March 2025 request by email. Rather, he says only that he “made a second public records request” in March 2025. This is in marked contrast to the previous paragraph of his affidavit in which Harris expressly states that he “submitted an electronic public records request” in March 2024. Thus, Harris has failed to meet his burden to show that he transmitted the March 2025 public-records request by email. See McDougald at ¶ 22 (a public-records requester seeking statutory damages must prove the method of delivery by clear and convincing evidence). {¶ 33} What is more, once the police department was served with Harris’s mandamus complaint and became aware of the public-records request, it responded within days, providing responsive records on April 2, 2025. Under these circumstances, Harris has not shown that the police department failed to respond to his request within a reasonable time. {¶ 34} But even if we were to take the concurring-and-dissenting opinion’s position and assume that Harris emailed his request on March 3, we would still conclude that Harris is not entitled to statutory damages because the police 12  January Term, 2026 department’s response time was not unreasonable. The police department responded to the request on April 2, 30 days after Harris’s alleged request. Whether that response was within a reasonable time “depends upon all the pertinent facts and circumstances,” State ex rel. Cincinnati Enquirer v. Deters, 2016-Ohio-8195, ¶ 23, citing Morgan, 2009-Ohio-1901, at ¶ 10, including “‘an opportunity on the part of the public office to examine records prior to inspection in order to make appropriate redactions of exempt materials,’” Kesterson, 2018-Ohio-5108, at ¶ 16, quoting State ex rel. Warren Newspapers, Inc. v. Hutson, 1994-Ohio-5, ¶ 19. Here, Harris’s request was for multiple classes of records that spanned over a year. The police department had to then determine which documents met the request and which did not, including which records were exempt from disclosure under statutory exceptions. So even if the police department did take 30 days to respond to Harris’s request, its response time was reasonable given the circumstances. See Deters at ¶ 23; see also State ex rel. Shaughnessy v. Cleveland, 2016-Ohio-8447, ¶ 22 (holding that “[w]hile 31 business days may appear to stretch the outer limits of reasonableness,” that response time was nonetheless reasonable). {¶ 35} Thus, even if we assume that Harris sent his request on March 3, the police department’s response time was reasonable. We therefore deny Harris’s request for statutory damages for the March 2025 request. D. Court Costs {¶ 36} Harris also seeks an award of court costs in this action. Because we deny the writ, Harris is not entitled to court costs. State ex rel. Mobley v. Bates, 2024- Ohio-2827, ¶ 16. Regardless, Harris filed an affidavit of indigency in this case and thus has not incurred any court costs. Id. III. CONCLUSION {¶ 37} We deny the writ and statutory damages for both the March 2024 and March 2025 public-records requests. We also deny Harris’s request for an award of court costs. 13  SUPREME COURT OF OHIO Writ denied. __________________ KENNEDY, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part. {¶ 38} “While there is some dispute whether Lady Justice should wear a blindfold, the metaphor was surely never intended to suggest that justice disregards the facts.” Keller v. Wilson, 168 S.W.3d 802, 827 (Tex. 2005). Nor was it intended to suggest that justice disregards the law. Unfortunately, the majority sees things differently. {¶ 39} This case presents straightforward questions of fact and law regarding relator Lionel Harris’s entitlement to statutory damages for two public- records requests that were not fulfilled by respondent, the Put-in-Bay Police Department, within a reasonable time. The majority denies Harris an award of statutory damages for one of those requests because, it says, Harris has not proved that he transmitted his request by hand delivery, certified mail, or electronic submission. However, Harris and the police department both submitted evidence showing that Harris emailed the public-records request—something the department has not contested. Copies of this evidence appear in this opinion so that readers may decide for themselves. {¶ 40} The majority then denies Harris an award of statutory damages for a second request after assuming that Harris—and not the police department— deserves the blame for the police department’s delay in finding the public-records request. In doing so, the majority creates a new “found later” exception to Ohio’s Public Records Act that is absent from R.C. 149.43 and has already been squarely rejected by this court. {¶ 41} While I agree with the court’s judgment denying as moot Harris’s request for a writ of mandamus and denying Harris’s request for court costs, I disagree with the majority’s decision denying Harris’s request for statutory damages. Even though Harris’s request for a writ of mandamus is moot, his request 14  January Term, 2026 for statutory damages is not. State ex rel. Castellon v. Swallow, 2025-Ohio-5576, ¶ 26. And Harris has met his statutory burden for such an award by showing that both of his public-records requests were transmitted electronically and fairly described the requested records and that the police department took an unreasonable amount of time to respond to his requests. Nothing more is required. Therefore, I would award Harris statutory damages in the amount of $2,000. Since the majority would rather turn a blind eye to the facts and the law, I concur in part and dissent in part. I. FACTS {¶ 42} The police department established an email address for receiving public-records requests: records@pibpolice.com. {¶ 43} On March 30, 2024, Harris transmitted a public-records request to that email address using a Google email account (“Gmail”). In the email’s subject line, he titled the email “Public records request,” and he addressed the email to the “Put in Bay Police department public Records Officer.” In that email, Harris requested ten records: 1. Put in Bay Police department’s most current records retention schedule; 2. Personnel file of the Put in Bay chief of police James Kimble (redacted in a manner consistent with R.C. 149.43); 3. Annual budget report for 2023; 4. Use of force reports for the department from 2022 to present; 5. Current bond register; 6. Booking and release policy; 7. Payroll record – employee earnings for police chief James Kimble from 2023 to present; 15  SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 8. Employee sick leave/vacation records of James Kimble for 2023 to present; 9. Put in Bay Police department’s most current records retention policy; 10. All complaints against Put in Bay patrol officers accusing them of racism from September 2023 to present. Harris signed the email using his name and included his prison address where he wanted the requested records to be sent. During this litigation, Harris admitted that he transmitted that public-records request from prison using a contraband cellphone. {¶ 44} On March 3, 2025, Harris transmitted another public-records request to the police department using a different email account. This time, Harris requested five records: 1. All administrative leave or reinstatement issued to any employees of the Put in Bay police department from the time frame of September 2023 through September 2024. 2. Annual Budget Report for 2024. 3. Payroll record – employee earnings for current police chief from 2024 to present. 4. All complaints against Put in Bay patrol officers for September 2023. 5. All Use of force reports for September 2023. {¶ 45} On March 13, 2025, Harris filed a complaint requesting a writ of mandamus, court costs, and statutory damages related to his two public-records requests. 16  January Term, 2026 {¶ 46} On March 26, Yuri Linetsky—a commissioned and sworn peace officer who serves as a part-time officer for the police department and whose administrative duties include “evaluating and responding to requests for public records”—learned about the mandamus complaint. Linetsky states in an affidavit that he then began reviewing the department’s public-records email account and found Harris’s 2024 email requesting public records, a copy of which Harris had attached as exhibit A to his mandamus complaint. Linetsky also found in the department’s public-records email account Harris’s 2025 email requesting public records, a copy of which Harris attached as exhibit B to his mandamus complaint. {¶ 47} As soon as Linetsky found Harris’s emails, he analyzed them to determine whether any of the requested records were excepted from disclosure under the Public Records Act; he then identified and assembled responsive records to the requests. According to Linetsky, his work was completed “within a matter of days.” {¶ 48} On April 2, in separate letters, counsel for the police department responded to Harris’s 2024 and 2025 public-records requests. In response to the 2024 request, counsel admitted that the department had received Harris’s request by email. The subject line of the letter states, “Response to your March 30, 2024 email.” In the body of the letter, counsel says, “This email was received by the Village of Put-in-Bay’s email system but delivered directly into a spam file. As a result, the email was not viewed by anyone in the Village until after you filed your petition in the above referenced matter.” Counsel then listed the public records that Harris had requested and provided a response to each request. The letter and responsive records were transmitted by regular and certified mail to Harris at the prison address Harris had provided in his public-records request. {¶ 49} In response to Harris’s 2025 public-records request, counsel admitted that the police department had received Harris’s request by email. This 17  SUPREME COURT OF OHIO admission is apparent from the letter that counsel sent to Harris, a portion of which is shown below: The subject line of the letter states, “Response to your March 3, 2025 email.” And in the body of the letter, counsel says, “This is a response to your March 3, 2025 email, in which you requested copies of the following records . . . .” Counsel then listed the public records that Harris had requested and provided a response to each request. The letter and responsive records were transmitted by regular and certified mail to Harris at the prison address he had provided in his public-records request. II. LAW AND ANALYSIS A. Statutory Damages under Ohio’s Public Records Act {¶ 50} Subject to an exception not relevant here, “upon request by any person, a public office or person responsible for public records shall make copies of the requested public record available to the requester at cost and within a reasonable period of time.” R.C. 149.43(B)(1).5 5. The General Assembly has recently amended R.C. 149.43, most notably in 2024 Sub.H.B. No. 265 (effective Apr. 9, 2025). This opinion applies the versions of the statute enacted in 2023 18  January Term, 2026 {¶ 51} A public-records requester is “entitled to recover [an] amount of statutory damages” if he or she meets certain statutory requirements and the public office fails to comply with its statutory duties. R.C. 149.43(C)(2). Specifically, a public-records requester must show by clear and convincing evidence, State ex rel. Anderson v. Wilson, 2025-Ohio-493, ¶ 15, that (1) he or she transmitted the request by a qualifying method, (2) he or she fairly described the requested records, and (3) the public office did not provide the requested records within a reasonable time, R.C. 149.43(C)(2). Qualifying transmissions include hand delivery, certified mail, and electronic submission. Id. If the public-records requester satisfies his or her burden, an award of statutory damages under the Public Records Act is compulsory: “the requester shall be entitled to recover . . . statutory damages” (emphasis added), id. {¶ 52} The amount of damages a public-records requester may receive is limited to “one hundred dollars for each business day” from the date the requester filed a complaint for a writ of mandamus to the day the public office complies with its statutory obligations under the Public Records Act. Id. In all, a requester may receive “a maximum of one thousand dollars” per request. Id. {¶ 53} The Public Records Act provides only one circumstance in which “[t]he court may reduce an award of statutory damages or not award statutory damages.” (Emphasis added.) Id. To reduce or not award statutory damages, the court must decide that “a well-informed” public-records custodian would reasonably believe that the conduct of the public office or person responsible for the requested public records (1) “did not constitute a failure to comply with an obligation in accordance with [R.C. 149.43(B)]” and (2) “would serve the public policy that underlies the authority that is asserted as permitting that conduct.” R.C. 149.43(C)(2)(a) and (b). Both prongs must be met. Sub.H.B. No. 33 (effective Oct. 3, 2023) and 2024 Sub.S.B. No. 29 (effective Oct. 24, 2024); those versions are substantially similar. 19  SUPREME COURT OF OHIO {¶ 54} When the court is faced with the question whether a public office produced requested records within a reasonable time, the answer turns on “all the pertinent facts and circumstances,” State ex rel. Cincinnati Enquirer v. Deters, 2016-Ohio-8195, ¶ 23, such as the efforts made by the public office to respond, the frequency and number of reque