Judge says Howard County coroner violated sunshine law in suit over inquest into teen’s death

Howard County Judge Scott Hayes has issued a partial summary judgment in the lawsuit between the Howard County Coroner’s office and the Glasgow School District.

The judgment says the Howard County Coroner “wrongfully denied access to open public records” that the Glasgow School District requested under Missouri’s sunshine law. The judgment also says the coroner is not a “law enforcement agency” and cannot close the records requested by the district as “investigative reports.”

The district sued the coroner’s office back in March 2017 for the records from a coroner’s inquest in January of that year. The jury in the coroner’s inquest found that the suicide death of 17-year-old Kenneth Suttner was caused by harassment at work and school. In December 2017, Judge Hayes ruled that the records from the inquest be turned over to the Glasgow School District.

Richard Hicks, attorney for the Howard County Coroner’s Office, told ABC 17 News Tuesday that they are filing a notice of appeal, adding that he couldn’t talk further about the case. Tom Mickes, attorney for the Glasgow School District, told ABC 17 News the district is now working to recover attorney fees.

“The judge has indicated that if the ruling at issue is upheld in the court of appeals, which I think it will, that’s he’s going to award attorney fees. And the only way he can do that is to find that the coroner knowingly and intentionally violated the act [sunshine law],” Mickes said.

Mickes estimated that attorney fees are “somewhere in the $40,000-$50,000 range.” If the judge awards attorney fees, it will be up to Howard County to determine who is responsible for payment. The same is true for any fees that stem from a sunshine law violation.

“It’s an unfortunate thing–you have one public entity, the school district, suing another public entity and it’s all taxpayers’ money,” Mickes said. “It’s kind of a waste of time. I don’t know why we have to do this.”