The state appeals court in Kansas City ruled Tuesday it couldn't rule on an appeal because it was filed too late.
But, the three-judge panel also said, in a footnote in the three-page opinion, a separate ruling 10 years ago most likely would have meant the appeal would have been rejected on its merits.
The legal battle began when K. Patrick Douglas, Bolivar, wanted to get some records from Missouri's Office of State Courts Administrator in 2012 - but OSCA told him the information he wanted wasn't available on any existing document.
So he filed a lawsuit on Nov. 19, 2013, asking the Cole County Circuit Court to find that OSCA had violated the state's Sunshine Law.
Nearly two years later - Oct. 8, 2014 - Circuit Judge Dan Green ruled in OSCA's favor - and Douglas appealed.
But, the appeals court ruled, Douglas' appeal was filed one day too late - so legally, the court did "not possess jurisdiction to consider this appeal," Judge Mark D. Pfeiffer wrote.
Writing for the three-judge panel, Pfeiffer noted the Supreme Court's rules are clear - when there are no after-trial motions, "a judgment becomes final thirty days after it is entered by the trial court," and "no appeal shall be effective unless the notice of appeal (is) filed not later than 10 days after the judgment or order appealed from becomes final."
In Douglas' case, the appeals court said, Green's ruling was filed on Oct. 8, 2014, and, with no post-judgment motions filed, became a final judgment on Nov. 7.
That meant his notice of appeal had to be filed no later than Nov. 17 - but was not filed until Nov. 18.
The footnote repeated the appeals court has no jurisdiction to consider "the merits of Douglas' appeal," but added: "It appears that the trial court did not err in granting OSCA's motion for judgment on the pleadings."
The appeals court cited a 2005 case it had decided involving an apartment owner and the Jackson County circuit court, where the appeals court ruled "that the circuit court did not violate Sunshine Law requirements by denying a request to create a new, customized record from information contained in existing records."
In that 2005 case, apartment owner Kennedy F. Jones wanted the court staff to provide him with a list of "landlord petitions and complaints for rent and possession, unlawful detainer and damages for breach of lease or rental agreements," including the names and addresses of parties in each case, the case numbers, the losing parties, the dates and amounts of the judgments and which courts handled each case.
Jones argued existing technology would let the court search its records and provide the list.
But the trial court and the appeals court ruled "the plain language of the Sunshine Law does not require a public governmental body to create a new record upon request, but only to provide access to existing records held or maintained by the public governmental body."
In its footnote in Douglas' case, the appeals court said: "The pleadings before the trial court reflected that the information Douglas sought from OSCA were not existing "public records,' as that term is defined by (state law); instead, the information sought ... would require the compilation (or "data dumps' of selected data from certain "data elements') of information from existing court records, to prepare a new, customized record."
And the appeals court already had ruled against that practice.