Michigan Court of Appeals Case Addresses the Deadline for Providing Records after Receiving a FOIA Request
In December 2025, the Michigan Court of Appeals decided that there is no specific amount of time in which a public body must fulfill a records request under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”). Under FOIA, public bodies must respond to a records request within 5 business days of receiving the request. The public body has the option of extending the deadline to respond to the request by 10 business days. While compliance with the deadline to respond to a request is mandatory, FOIA contains no specific deadline to fulfill a request by providing the responsive records.
In American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan v City of Grand Rapids, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan (“ACLU”) submitted a FOIA request to, ironically, receive records related to the City of Grand Rapids’ (the “City”) delay in fulfilling FOIA requests. The City responded to the request and requested a good-faith deposit of half of the estimated cost to fulfill the request. The City estimated that it would take only 2 hours and 15 minutes to process the request, but that it would take approximately 8 to 10 months to provide the records to the ACLU. The ACLU paid the good-faith deposit to the City and filed an administrative appeal and then a lawsuit, arguing that the City’s estimated 8-10 month delay in providing the records, which the City estimated would take only 2 hours and 15 minutes to process, constructively denied the ACLU’s FOIA request. While the case was pending in trial court, the City produced the requested records 13 months after the ACLU’s initial request.
On appeal, the ACLU acknowledged that FOIA contains no specific deadline in which a public body must fulfill a records request. Instead, the ACLU argued that, when read as a whole and in light of the FOIA’s purpose of prompt disclosure, FOIA requires public bodies to fulfill requests within a reasonable time. The ACLU urged the Court to adopt a rebuttable presumption of reasonableness if a public body begins to fulfill a request within 30 days of payment of the good-faith deposit, and to set a firm deadline of 90 days to fulfill the request barring extraordinary circumstances.
The Court rejected the ACLU’s arguments and held that FOIA imposes no strict deadline for public bodies to fulfill a request. In considering the claim, the Court analyzed the language of FOIA. The Court concluded that the Michigan Legislature did not intend to impose any express deadline within which public bodies are required to fulfill a FOIA request. The Court also rejected the ACLU’s request to adopt either the 30-day rebuttable presumption or the 90-day firm deadline because imposing these deadlines added language to FOIA that the Legislature did not see fit to impose.
Public bodies are still required to fulfill FOIA requests within a reasonable amount of time. The Court noted that requesters could still challenge a public body’s delay in fulfilling a request because FOIA provides a remedy if a public body has “arbitrarily and capriciously violated [FOIA] by refusal or delay in disclosing or providing public records.” However, in this case, the ACLU failed to argue that the 13-month waiting period was arbitrary and capricious.
The takeaway of this case is that, while FOIA contains express deadlines for a public body to respond to a FOIA request, there is no definitive timeframe in which a public body must fulfill a records request. Nonetheless, requests must be filled within a reasonable time. An appeal of the decision is pending in the Michigan Supreme Court. We will continue to monitor the status of the appeal.
If you have any questions regarding the timeframe for fulfilling FOIA requests, or general questions about compliance with FOIA, please contact one of the members of our Local Government Practice Group.
