Florida’s Public Records Act is not ambiguous. It is not discretionary. And it does not bend to institutional inconvenience.
A Verified Petition for Writ of Mandamus and Complaint for Declaratory Judgment and Mandatory Injunction was served on Broward Health. The Broward Public Interest Research Group (BPIRG) delivered it on 12/30/2025. BPIRG wants to learn what the Broward Health’s top corporate officers are being paid. They seek details of their employment contracts. BPIRG also wants copies of the contracts with the Memorial Health System. The Board authorized these contracts and delegated them to staff at an emergency meeting. Lastly, they demand details of a fund-raising Gala. This event claims millions of dollars of contributions. These contributions have apparently never shown up on its financial reports. The lawsuit reads less like a routine public-records dispute. It resembles a case study in how delay itself becomes a method. This method serves to deny basic public transparency in a tax-supported public organization. Why is Broward Health working so hard to hide this information from the taxpayers? Why is it also hidden from the Board of Commissioners?
20251218-Petition-Complaint-Final-3-PDF-FiledAt its core, the complaint is not about exotic records or sensitive investigations. It concerns four straightforward public records requests submitted between March and June 2025. These include executive W-2 payroll data and gala attendee contact lists. They also include Board authorized and delegated agreements from an emergency meeting. Employment contracts for top executives are also part of these records. All are facially public records. All are electronically stored. And all, according to the pleading, have been withheld for months. Some have been withheld for nearly a year. They have been withheld without production, without lawful exemption statements, and without a meaningful estimate of when compliance will occur.
The Anatomy of a Delay
What stands out instantly is the timeline.
BPIRG’s first inquiry—submitted March 17, 2025—sought an electronic report of 2024 W-2 payroll information for Broward Health’s corporate officers. Not rank-and-file employees. Not clinicians. Vice presidents and above. The demand was acknowledged. Then “clarification” was requested. Clarification was provided. Then more clarification was asked for. Then the plea remained “in process.”
By the time BPIRG served its statutory §119.12 notice in late September, more than 270 days had elapsed. No records. No exemptions. No lawful explanation.
The pattern repeats across the other requests. Each is acknowledged. Each is said to be “in process.” Each triggers follow-ups requesting time frames and cost estimates. Each receives generic responses about compiling estimates or ongoing review. And each remains unfulfilled well past any reasonable interpretation of “prompt” under Chapter 119.
This is not a single oversight. It is a systemic posture.
What the Law Actually Requires
Florida courts have been unequivocal on this point for decades. An agency’s duty to produce public records is ministerial, not discretionary. Delay—particularly unexplained or indefinite delay—amounts to an unlawful refusal. An agency must claim an exemption in writing. It must do so with particularity. The agency needs to pinpoint both the record and the specific statutory basis for withholding.
The complaint carefully lays out this law. It cites controlling cases from the Florida Supreme Court and the Fourth District Court of Appeal. Importantly, it also addresses a frequent institutional fallback: “good faith.” Under Florida law, good faith is irrelevant, and it can’t legally be used as an excuse. The burden is entirely on the agency.
That burden, BPIRG alleges, has not been met—not once across four separate requests.
Why Mandamus Matters Here
Some ask: why escalate to a writ of mandamus?
The answer is embedded in the statute itself. Chapter 119 recognizes that delay causes irreparable harm because public records are time-sensitive by nature. Information withheld today is meaningless tomorrow. That is why the legislature created a fast-track enforcement mechanism and mandated priority hearings.
Mandamus is not punitive. It is corrective. It exists to compel an agency to do what the law already requires. And when delays stretch from weeks into months—then into quarters—the remedy becomes unavoidable.
Notably, BPIRG also seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging a pattern of noncompliance and a likelihood of future violations. That is significant. Courts are generally reluctant to supervise agencies absent evidence of recurring misconduct. The complaint argues that this threshold has now been crossed.
The Larger Issue: Transparency as a Public Role
Broward Health is not a private corporation. It is an independent special taxing district. It is funded by the public and governed by statute. It is entrusted with one of the county’s most essential functions. Transparency is not an accessory to that mission; it is a prerequisite.
Public institutions sometimes treat records requests as adversarial nuisances. They should be treated as statutory obligations instead. This behavior inverts the relationship between government and citizen. The Public Records Act was designed to prevent exactly that inversion.
This case is thus about more than W-2s, gala lists, or Board agreements. It is about whether compliance with Florida’s Sunshine Amendment remains automatic—or becomes conditional on persistence, litigation, and attrition.
An Avoidable Outcome
What makes this dispute particularly stark is how avoidable it seems. BPIRG repeatedly expressed willingness to pay reasonable service fees. It narrowed and clarified requests. It waited months before invoking statutory enforcement. And even after counsel became involved, production remained partial and slow.
Litigation was not the first step here. It was the last.
The court will now decide whether Broward Health’s conduct forms unlawful delay and whether mandamus and injunctive relief are warranted. But regardless of the outcome, the filing itself underscores a recurring truth in public-records enforcement: opacity rarely announces itself outright. More often, it arrives disguised as process.
And when “in process” becomes a permanent answer, the law provides a remedy.