Judge Rejects Firm's FOIA Request for Bridge Collapse Data
A Minnesota judge has rejected a law firm’s bid to obtain data about the massive I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis.
Hennepin County District Judge Herbert Lefler ruled that National Transportation Safety Board regulations that control the release of investigation documents trump state law that might have allowed the firm’s consultants access to the data.
Schwebel, Goetz & Sieben, a Minneapolis firm representing victims of the collapse, wanted access to state Department of Transportation records and access to the Bohemian Flats, where select pieces of the bridge are being stored, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports.
Under NTSB regulations, the records are nonpublic. But the law firm had argued that under the Minnesota’s data practices act, it is entitled to review “government data collected, created, received, maintained or disseminated by a government entity.”
