Beleaguered Brentwood attorney Connie Reguli may have done many things wrong, but filing a public records request for county billing records wasn’t one of them.

The Tennessee Court of Appeals on May 2 vacated a trial court’s decision to sanction Reguli and fine her $5,000 over her February 2022 public records request and lawsuit, remanding the case back to the trial court.

The appeals court, in an opinion written by Appeals Court Judge Jeffrey Usman, said a Williamson County judge erred in ruling that Reguli violated court rules for failing to research her request before filing her public records lawsuit and for having an “improper purpose” in her planned use of the documents.

Reguli had requested records that would reveal how much Williamson County spent on the legal defense of a former county employee, Juan Cruz, in civil and criminal proceedings. Cruz had been accused of sexual assault of a 14-year-old in 2013 at the county’s juvenile detention center.

Cruz was acquitted in criminal court, but Reguli has represented the alleged victim for several years in civil cases in federal and state courts. She has publicly questioned using taxpayer money to fund Cruz’s defense.

Although Reguli has had many run-ins with the Board of Professional Responsibility resulting in discipline and suspension of her law license over the years, the Court of Appeals did not look kindly on the trial court’s sanctions and fine issued against Reguli for her public records request, and ruled that two of the three sanctions issued were out of line.

Circuit Court Judge Joseph A. Woodruff had found Reguli violated Rule 11 of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure for three reasons:

  • Including a false statement and deceptive exhibit in her public records lawsuit;
  • Failing to conduct an adequate inquiry before filing her lawsuit; and
  • Having an improper purpose in connection with her anticipated speech regarding any public records that she might obtain via the Public Records Act.

Woodruff said Reguli’s “improper purpose” included “harassing the Williamson County Government” and “pressuring Williamson County to cease or deny further payments for insurance defense of counsel currently being provided to Juan Cruz,” and thus gaining some advantage in federal court.

The appeals court affirmed the trial court’s sanction for Reguli including a false statement in her public records lawsuit but found the trial court was wrong in sanctioning Reguli for “inadequate inquiry” and “improper purpose” in her public records request and appeal of the county’s denial.

Williamson County’s response to Reguli’s records request

After Reguli made her public records request in February 2022, Cruz filed a motion for a protective order in the federal civil rights case that would prohibit the county from disclosing billing records for his case, asking the federal judge to classify those records as protected under attorney-client privilege and the work product doctrine. He raised concerns that Reguli would try to “defund his defense through public advocacy in opposition to the County covering his legal expenses,” the ruling said.

After the motion was filed, Williamson County in March 2022 denied Reguli’s records request, writing on a denial form: “We are currently unable to provide the requested information due to the motion for protective order filed in the Federal case.”

In reviewing the case, the appeals court noted that one box on the denial form from Williamson County was not checked: the box that indicated that a denial was based on records not existing.

After receiving the denial, Reguli filed a petition in circuit court appealing the denial. (She had also asked for employment records of Juvenile Court Judge Sharon Guffee and redacted versions were provided.)

Inadequate inquiry before filing public records lawsuit

Circuit Court Judge Woodruff had issued the sanction for “inadequate inquiry,” saying that Reguli should have found out that billing records for the criminal case did not exist before she filed her public records lawsuit.

The fact that these records did not exist was first revealed in the county’s answer to the public records lawsuit when it stated in a court filing that it did not have billing records for the criminal defense because the county did not fund the criminal defense.

While the criminal court files were expunged years ago, Woodruff said that Reguli had plenty of time before the records were expunged to look through those records to discover the county had not paid for the defense or, alternately, she should have asked the county’s law firm whether the records existed before filing her lawsuit.

The appeals court rejected this reasoning, noting that the Tennessee Public Records Act requires that a government entity that denies a records request “shall include the basis for the denial.” (emphasis added by the appeals court). In this case, the county government did not tell Reguli that it did not have records related to the criminal case and only revealed this fact in its answer to Reguli’s lawsuit.

“We do not understand the Public Records Act to require a party to take anticipatory actions months or even years before a public records request so that he or she will know whether the public records actually exist…” the appeals court said. It also said that the law firm the trial court judge suggested Reguli contact was the same one that responded to the records request without indicating some of the records don’t exist.

Reguli had a right to file her public records lawsuit “with an understanding that the basis of denial is what the government has asserted it to be and not what the government has not asserted it to be,” the appeals court said. “A contrary approach threatens to undermine the structure and operation of the Public Records Act, chilling the pursuit of public records and the transparency in government produced thereby.”

Improper user of public records does not include speech

The appeals court also took aim at the trial court’s concern that Reguli would use the billing records to speak with elected officials and voters about what she thought was a misuse of public funds in paying for Cruz’s defense in the civil case.

But as a general rule, the court said, making publicly available documents that are public under the law is “not a sanctionable improper purpose of the filing of a petition under the Public Records Act.”

“Preemptively sanctioning Ms. Reguli because of her anticipated use of documents available to the public under the Public Records Act in communicating with public officials regarding her disapproval of certain public expenditures raises serious problems with running afoul of the Public Records Act,” the appeals court wrote.

The appeal court also raised First Amendment concerns:  “Preemptive sanctioning of speech that has not yet been uttered also raises serious questions related to constitutional safeguards against prior restraints upon speech. Ms. Reguli is being sanctioned with denial of access to a document that all other Tennessee citizens can obtain based upon what it is anticipated that she will say after the public records are in possession. She is also being sanctioned, including a monetary penalty, for speech that she has not yet uttered.”

The appeals court warned of the dangers of imposing sanctions against people who file public records lawsuits out of concerns about how a citizen might use or speak about the records if access is granted. It said that it was clear that Reguli had filed the lawsuit to try to gain access to the records that she believed she had a legal right to obtain, not that she filed the lawsuit to harass, delay or increase costs.

The appeals court also found that the $5,000 penalty “transgresses the constitutional limitations of the Fifty-Dollar Fine Clause.”

Judges Frank G. Clement Jr. and Andy D. Bennett joined the opinion.