Show me the money
Mark D. Lay is a Democrat contributor.
BWC slow to show suit’s money trail
Blacked-out bills given to ‘Dispatch’
It seemed like a straightforward question: How much did it cost Ohio taxpayers to pursue the civil lawsuit against Mark D. Lay, and how was the money spent?
But getting the answer proved complicated, in part because the state Bureau of Workers’ Compensation initially blacked out from the bills details such as a $6,000 trip to Bermuda to interview witnesses. The bureau called it an inadvertent mistake.
The Dispatch made a request last month for all records documenting the cost for the lawsuit against Lay, who managed a Bermuda-based hedge fund for the bureau that lost $216 million before it was shut down in 2005.
The attorney general’s office was able to provide only some of the documents because most of the invoices from the law firm that was hired for the case were forwarded to the bureau.
Initially, the bureau said those records were not public, then provided bills with large sections blacked out. After the newspaper questioned it, the bureau agreed to provide the records without redaction.
Most of what had been blocked involved details about meals and other travel costs for lawyers hired to work on the case for the state, including the one-week trip to Bermuda in 2006 by a lawyer and court reporter to take depositions.
That included $3,247 in airfare for the lawyer and court reporter; $2,341 in lodging; $240 in meals for the lawyer; and $108 in parking and taxi costs.
James Barnes, the chief legal counsel for the bureau, said the redaction was done by four administrative workers who aren’t lawyers.
They mistakenly thought they were following the lead of the attorney general’s office in shielding details of work performed by attorneys that would be protected under attorney-client privilege, Barnes said.
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