Going to court under Illinois FOIA: suing, PAC review, fees and penalties
Statute quotations come from the FOIA text published on this site’s statutes page (5 ILCS 140, fetched September 6, 2026). Case statements come from the case texts linked below. General information, not legal advice.
If a public body denies your request, the Act gives you two main routes. You can ask the Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor (PAC) to review the denial under section 9.5, or you can sue in circuit court under section 11. This guide compares the two, then explains attorney’s fees and civil penalties.
PAC review (section 9.5) compared with a lawsuit (section 11)
| PAC request for review, section 9.5 | Lawsuit, section 11 | |
|---|---|---|
| Who may use it | “A person whose request to inspect or copy a public record is denied by a public body” (9.5(a)) | “Any person denied access to inspect or copy any public record by a public body” (11(a)) |
| Deadline | Not later than 60 days after the date of the final denial (9.5(a)) | Section 11 does not itself set a filing deadline. |
| What you file | A request for review that is in writing, signed by the requester, and includes a copy of the request for access to records and any responses from the public body (9.5(a)) | A suit “for injunctive or declaratory relief” (11(a)) |
| Where | The Public Access Counselor in the Office of the Attorney General (9.5(a)) | Circuit court. For a State body, the county of its principal office or where you live; for a municipality or other public body, the county where it is located (11(b), 11(c)) |
| What can come out of it | A binding opinion with findings of fact and conclusions of law, or another resolution such as mediation. “The decision not to issue a binding opinion shall not be reviewable.” (9.5(f)) | An order enjoining the body from withholding records and ordering production of records “improperly withheld” (11(d)) |
| Standard of review | The Attorney General examines “the issues and the records” (9.5(f)) | The court considers the matter “de novo”. The public body has the burden of showing its refusal is in accordance with the Act, and must prove an exemption “by clear and convincing evidence” (11(f)) |
| Fees and penalties | Section 9.5 has no attorney’s-fee provision and sets no civil penalty. A body that discloses records “in accordance with an opinion of the Attorney General” “shall not be liable for penalties under this Act” (9.5(f)). | Attorney’s fees and costs (11(i)); civil penalties (11(j)) |
Limits on PAC review: a person whose request is made “for a commercial purpose” may not file a request for review. A person whose request the body treated as commercial may file for the limited purpose of reviewing whether the body properly determined that the request was commercial. A person whose request was treated as voluminous may file to review whether the body properly treated it as voluminous (9.5(b), 9.5(b-5)).
Section 11 does not itself set a deadline for filing a lawsuit. Talk to a lawyer about timing before you wait.
When you can sue
Section 11(a) lets “any person denied access” file suit. Three other sections tell you what counts as a denial:
- A public body’s silence is a denial. “Failure to comply with a written request, extend the time for response, or deny a request within 5 business days after its receipt shall be considered a denial of the request.” (3(d)). The same is true if the body takes an extension and then does not respond in time (3(f)).
- A requester “shall be deemed to have exhausted his or her administrative remedies with respect to that request if the public body fails to act within the time periods provided in Section 3.” (9(c))
- A fee not consistent with section 6(a) and (b) “constitutes a denial of access to public records for the purposes of judicial review.” (6(d))
Section 11(a) does not mention asking the PAC first. Section 9.5(g) covers the overlap: if you sue over the same denial that is the subject of a pending request for review, you “shall notify the Public Access Counselor,” and the PAC “shall take no further action with respect to the request for review.”
After a binding PAC opinion
A binding opinion is “binding upon both the requester and the public body, subject to administrative review under Section 11.5” (9.5(f)). If it finds a violation, the public body must “either take necessary action immediately to comply with the directive of the opinion or shall initiate administrative review under Section 11.5.” If it finds no violation, the requester may initiate administrative review (9.5(f)).
Administrative review of a binding opinion “shall be commenced in Cook or Sangamon County” (11.5). A requester may also file an action to enforce a binding opinion (11(a-5), 11.6).
Section 11.6(a) sets a presumption that matters for penalties. A court is to presume the public body “willfully and intentionally failed to comply” for purposes of section 11(j) if all three of these are true: the Attorney General issued a binding opinion; the body did not file for administrative review within 35 days after the opinion was served on it; and the body did not comply with the opinion within 35 days after service. The body can rebut the presumption by “showing that it is making a good faith effort to comply with the binding opinion, but compliance was not possible within the 35-day time frame” (11.6(b)).
See the provision page for section 9.5 for PAC decisions on the review process.
What a court case involves
The statute gives the court these tools:
- It may “enjoin the public body from withholding public records and … order the production of any public records improperly withheld.” If the body shows “exceptional circumstances” and due diligence, the court may keep jurisdiction and allow more time (11(d)).
- On the plaintiff’s motion, the court “shall order the public body to provide an index of the records to which access has been denied,” describing each withheld document or deletion and stating the exemption claimed for each (11(e)).
- The court may conduct “such in camera examination of the requested records as it finds appropriate” (11(f)).
- If a body does not comply with a court order to disclose, the court may enforce its order through “the court’s contempt powers” against the official or employee responsible (11(g)).
- These cases “shall take precedence on the docket” over other causes, except those the court considers of greater importance (11(h)).
Attorney’s fees
Section 11(i) says: “If a person seeking the right to inspect or receive a copy of a public record prevails in a proceeding under this Section, the court shall award such person reasonable attorney’s fees and costs.” In deciding the amount, “the court shall consider the degree to which the relief obtained relates to the relief sought.”
One example from the corpus: in NBC Subsidiary (WMAQ-TV) LLC v. Chicago Police Department, 2026 IL App (1st) 250575-U, the police department produced the records after suit was filed and the parties resolved the issues about the documents. The circuit court then “granted the fee petition in part and awarded NBC attorney fees and costs” (¶ 12). That order does not decide how fee awards work generally. It only reports what happened in that case.
Civil penalties under section 11(j)
The text of section 11(j):
If the court determines that a public body willfully and intentionally failed to comply with this Act, or otherwise acted in bad faith, the court shall also impose upon the public body a civil penalty of not less than $2,500 nor more than $5,000 for each occurrence. In assessing the civil penalty, the court shall consider in aggravation or mitigation the budget of the public body and whether the public body has previously been assessed penalties for violations of this Act.
The subsection also lets the court “impose an additional penalty of up to $1,000 for each day the violation continues” if three conditions are met: the body fails to comply with the court’s order after 30 days; the order is not on appeal or stayed; and the court has not given the body additional time to comply (11(j)(1)-(3)).
The disagreement is over the first sentence. Does a willful and intentional violation, by itself, call for a penalty? Or must the requester also prove bad faith, and if so, what kind? The appellate decisions below answer that differently. The splits tracker lists them side by side.
Williams v. Bruscato (Second District, 2021)
In Williams v. Bruscato, 2021 IL App (2d) 190971, the plaintiff appealed the denial of his petition for statutory penalties under section 11(j). The court affirmed. It held:
where a public body willfully, intentionally, and in bad faith failed to comply with the FOIA, the court shall impose a civil penalty. (¶ 14)
It then defined the terms using dictionary definitions and concluded that “the public body not only must have intentionally failed to comply with the FOIA but must have done so deliberately, by design, and with a dishonest purpose.” (¶ 15)
Later decisions followed that standard. Lucy Parsons Labs, ¶ 40, lists these examples: Kraft v. City of Kankakee, 2022 IL App (3d) 210270-U; Edgar County Watchdogs v. Joliet Township, 2023 IL App (3d) 210520; Thomas v. County of Cook, 2023 IL App (1st) 211656; and Harsy v. Perry County Sheriff’s Office, 2024 IL App (5th) 180483-U.
Tobias v. City of Chicago Office of the Mayor (First District, March 2, 2026)
Tobias v. City of Chicago Office of the Mayor, 2026 IL App (1st) 241435-U is an order filed under Supreme Court Rule 23. Its notice reads: “This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).”
The court wrote (¶ 49) that “to warrant civil penalties, the City’s failure to comply with FOIA had to be done deliberately and by intention/design or the City had to in some different way act dishonestly or fail to fulfill its statutory duty.” It cited Williams and Thomas as a contrary view, describing Williams as “declining to honor the disjunctive, ‘or,’” in section 11(j). The order’s summary line says the City was not entitled to summary judgment on the penalty claim on the ground that its failure to produce records until mid-litigation was not willful, intentional or in bad faith as a matter of law.
Lucy Parsons Labs v. Chicago Police Department (First District, June 30, 2026)
Lucy Parsons Labs v. Chicago Police Department, 2026 IL App (1st) 250205 is captioned “Opinion” and carries no Rule 23 notice in the text on this site. The circuit court had relied on Williams and Thomas and found the department’s bad faith not sufficiently shown, even though the department knew the statute’s requirements and had violated them (¶ 2).
The appellate court reversed and remanded “for determination of appropriate civil penalties” (¶ 55). It reasoned that “or otherwise acted in bad faith” is a “catchall” and that willful and intentional noncompliance is an example of it, “illustrative rather than exhaustive” (¶ 37). It called the “dishonest purpose” definition “unduly narrow” (¶ 39), and adopted the Tobias formulation (¶ 40). In doing so it cited Rule 23(e)(1) as allowing a nonprecedential order entered on or after January 1, 2021 to be “cited for persuasive purposes.”
NBC Subsidiary (WMAQ-TV) LLC v. Chicago Police Department (First District, September 9, 2026)
NBC Subsidiary (WMAQ-TV) LLC v. Chicago Police Department, 2026 IL App (1st) 250575-U is also an order under Supreme Court Rule 23. Its notice, in the order’s own words: “This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).”
In that case NBC had asked for records about a hit-and-run crash, and the department withheld them, citing, among other grounds, exemptions for an ongoing investigation (¶¶ 3-5). The circuit court found the department’s conduct was “deliberate and by design,” but found no “dishonest purpose,” as Williams required, and so denied civil penalties. It described the record as reflecting “bad policy, confusion and ineptness” (¶ 22). The circuit court had also found that the department “relied on an internal policy of not releasing any records related to an open investigation” (¶ 22).
The First District reversed. It agreed with Tobias and Lucy Parsons Labs that section 11(j) “does not require separate showings” of a willful and intentional violation and of bad faith or a dishonest purpose, and wrote: “Thus, we decline to follow Williams or Thomas.” (¶ 37). It held that the circuit court’s finding that the violation was “deliberate and by design” was enough to impose civil penalties, and remanded “for a determination of an appropriate civil penalty” (¶¶ 41, 43).
Reading these together
- Williams (Second District, 2021) and the decisions that followed it require more than a willful and intentional violation.
- Three First District decisions from 2026 read section 11(j) as not requiring that extra showing. Tobias and NBC are Rule 23 orders, so check their notices before citing them. Lucy Parsons Labs is captioned as an opinion.
- NBC declined to follow a First District decision, Thomas, as well as the Second District’s Williams (¶ 37).
- These texts do not say whether any further court has addressed the question since September 9, 2026. Check before relying on any of them.
For public bodies: the FOIA officers’ page covers response steps that bear on these questions, including blanket withholding on the ground that an investigation is open.