Thursday, March 24, 2011

Identifying photocopy machine poses problem for county official

Via A Trainwreck In Maxwell

photocopier.JPG

What is a photocopier?

That seems like such a simple question.

But last year, a lawyer in a public-records case being heard by the Ohio Supreme Court had a hard time getting a $64,000-a-year Cuyahoga County worker to say whether the county recorder's office had a photocopier.

The effort consumes nearly 10 pages of a court transcript.

The overall case is about whether deeds and other records at the county recorder's office -- records that were collected and are maintained with your taxes -- should be readily available at reasonable cost.

The lawyers involved in the case say the question about the photocopier is technical, getting at an arcane point of law.

You be the judge.

What follows is a transcript of the deposition of Lawrence Patterson, acting head of information technology for the recorder's division of the county fiscal office. The questioner is attorney David Marburger, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of title companies. Another attorney, Matthew Cavanagh, represents the county and raises objections.

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