Ellingson family wins Sunshine lawsuit against Highway Patrol

A judge ruled the Missouri State Highway Patrol violated Missouri Sunshine laws by withholding findings from a death investigation Wednesday.

This comes after Brandon Ellingson died in May 2014 while in Highway Patrol’s custody at the Lake of the Ozarks.

Ellingson’s family filed a lawsuit in December 2014 after they said months of requests about the investigation went unmet, and untimely answered.

The custodian of records, superintendent, and patrol and its records custodian, Lieutenant Keverne McCollum, have been ordered a statutory fine of $5,000 to pay the Ellingson family.

This fine is the maximum fine that can be imposed in a Sunshine case, according to MU adjunct law professor Sandy Davidson. She said she hopes this ruling sends a loud message to other government agencies that there are judges who are taking the Sunshine law seriously.

“When you have an agency that delays and delays, there’s a point after which it’s just absurd,” said Davidson. “I think with the judge giving out this fine, the judge is saying that is just unacceptable.”

Throughout the summer of 2014, attorneys for the Ellingson family made more than two dozen open records requests for information like training for members of the Water Patrol, and specific records regarding the trooper who had Brandon in custody, Anthony Piercy.

Judge Jon Beetem noted the numerous delayed responses and violations of Missouri’s Sunshine Law by McCollum, such as failure to notify the attorneys within three days of the request of any delay for “reasonable cause.” McCollum, who claimed at trial to have given presentations on handling open records across the state, often gave the requested material weeks after the request, one in particular coming 215 days after its request.

Beetem said that many of these, such as Piercy’s swim tests, water training and chat logs between troopers the day of Brandon Ellingson’s death, “could all be considered highly damaging to the MSHP, and the wrongful nondisclosure of these documents is troubling to the Court.”

On August 19, 2014, Ellingson family attorneys asked for numerous records. The Patrol never contacted nor gave reason for a delay within three days, which Judge Beetem called “even the most basic requirement” of the law.

Davidson said the whole reason the Sunshine Law is in place to citizens give oversight to the government in cases like this.

“It also helps us to get information that might be vital, for instance in a lawsuit,” she said. “The Sunshine Law is there to let us know how our government is conducting government business.”

McCollum and the Patrol said they “forgot to send our responses and assembled records to [the Ellingsons’] attorneys in response to their August 19, 2014 letters.” Judge Beetem doubted that explanation, since it took them 40 days after the Ellingsons sued to send them that same information.

“Allowing public governmental bodies to avoid their Sunshine Law obligations by ignoring Sunshine Law requests until the requester brings a lawsuit, at which point the governmental body could simply claim ‘forgetfulness’ without the risk of civil penalties, would directly contradict the Sunshine Law’s policy of ‘open government and transparency,'” Beetem wrote.

A federal court dismissed civil charges against the Patrol claiming a conspiracy to cover up wrongdoing in Ellingson’s death. Piercy is appealing Judge Nanette Laughrey’s decision to keep charges against him, specifically, in the case. Piercy also faces a criminal trial in Morgan County for involuntary manslaughter.