GRO orders University of Utah to run email searches after Jones appeal; director finds request reasonably specific

The Government Records Office granted Thomas Jones’s appeal ordering the University of Utah to perform the email searches Jones requested, finding his description of custodians, domain names and timeframe met GRAMA’s reasonable‑specificity standard.

Jones asked the university to search emails for 10 named custodians across specified domains (including utah.gov and hhs.gov) from Jan. 1, 2024 to present, saying the correspondence was central to a government‑commissioned report and therefore of public interest. He told the director the search is routine for modern email‑management systems and that the university has the IT capability to run such Boolean searches.

University counsel (Roslyn and Watts) argued part 1 of Jones’s original three‑part request did not include a time frame and that the request as written lacked subject‑matter keywords and could sweep a very large universe of emails; they pointed to State Records Committee guidance that requests must give meaningful information about scope, content and subject matter to be reasonably specific. The university also said if the initial search returned a very large volume, it could raise fee and narrowing discussions.

After hearing the arguments, Director Pearson concluded the request was reasonably specific on its face, that the IT search described would be straightforward to run, and that GRAMA anticipates large productions in some cases with downstream tools (fees, narrowing) available to manage volume. He granted the appeal and directed the university to run the searches and to coordinate with the requester on production dates; a written decision will follow within seven business days.