« Courts - Still more on retention vote for Pennsylvania justices becomes a battleground | Main | Ind. Gov't. - Daniels hires new general counsel »

Friday, November 11, 2005

Ind. Decisions - Question of making town's private settlement public argued before Court of Appeals

The Court of Appeals heard oral arguments yesterday in Knightstown Banner, LLC vs. Town of Knightstown, et al. Unfortunately, the Court of Appeal's calendar generally gives no description of the subject of the upcoming arguments, and doubly unfortunate, very few Court of Appeals oral arguments are available as part of the Courts' "Oral Arguments Online" -- in fact, the last one was in February of 2005.

But Bill McCleery of the Indianapolis Star was there yesterday, and today's paper contains this story, headlined "Newsmen vs. Knightstown: Court hears dispute over making terms of a settlement public." Here is the side-bar timeline:

Timeline of the Knightstown dispute

• GiGi Steinwachs was fired in May 2002 from her job as a police dispatcher. Steinwachs later sued the town, alleging her civil rights were violated.

• In 2003, the Knightstown Town Council approved a private settlement of Steinwachs' lawsuit. The town paid $5,000 out of its coffers, and the town's insurance carrier, Governmental Interinsurance Exchange, paid the rest.

• The Knightstown Banner, a weekly newspaper, sued the town and the insurance company in 2004 to gain access to the details of the settlement. A Henry County court ruled against the Banner, which appealed the decision.

• The Indiana Court of Appeals agreed to consider the Banner's case and heard oral arguments Thursday.

From the story:
Lawyer Joel Harvey, representing the town, argued that open access laws would not pertain to the internal records of a road-paving company that performed work for a city or town. "I don't see how (the insurance company) is different," he said.

Judge Patricia A. Riley pressed Steven Pearson, a lawyer for the insurance carrier, to consider whether taxpayers might consider it their right to know the specifics of a legal settlement made on behalf of the town.

"We contend respectfully, your honor, that they are not entitled to that," he replied.

A ruling might be months away, but the newspaper's lawyer, Kurt Webber, said he was encouraged simply because the court took the Banner's case seriously enough to request a hearing.

Reading this story immediately brought to mind the quote from this ILB entry from Wednesday (third item) that the City of South Bend has settled its lawsuit against Allied Products Corp., but city officials and the attorney for the company wouldn't disclose the amount awarded in the settlement - the company's attorney said a confidentiality agreement with Allied bars them from discussing it.

See also this ILB entry (3rd item), also from this Wednesday, on the unavailability of a settlement "struck between Greenfield-based IMI and the Indiana attorney general's office" whereby "[a]n Indianapolis-area concrete firm that pleaded guilty to price-fixing will be given $30 million in state contracts to pave roads from Fort Wayne nearly to Evansville."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 11, 2005 08:58 AM
Posted to Ind. App.Ct. Decisions | Indiana Government