KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A Knox County chancellor said Friday he'll rule "as soon as possible" on a WBIR open records lawsuit against the University of Tennessee that seeks to examine longstanding agreements for the operation of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, one of the premier science labs in the U.S.
John F. Weaver, a veteran jurist of public records challenges, heard more than three hours of argument by 10News as well as UT over the agreements, first reached in 1999 and subsequently updated in 2007.
WBIR anchor John Becker filed suit in March in Knox County Chancery Court.
The station seeks the operating agreements reached between UT and Battelle Memorial Institute in the unique partnership as well as communications received by key UT administrators, including UT System President Randy Boyd, from ORNL or the UT-Battelle LLC beginning in January 2022.
Becker's quest for information started years ago with a query about the top salaried employees at the lab. UT has referred questions about the information to the limited liability company, which UT argues was set up as a private and separate, not-for-profit firm.
With the lawsuit, Becker and WBIR are challenging just how private the partnership can be -- as UT insists it is -- when it involves a public, state-funded, land grant university.
UT this week elected to make some records available that WBIR has sought, including the communication received by key UT figures from ORNL or the LLC. 10News has not yet inspected those documents.
UT also has responded with redacted versions of the operating agreements.
Arguing Friday on UT's behalf, associate general counsel T. Harold Pinkley told Weaver information in the agreements is protected by trade secrets laws. If competitors saw what's in them, they could learn Battelle Memorial Institute's formula for success and copy it, he said.
No lawyer for BMI attended Friday's hearing.
Weaver appeared skeptical about just how BMI would suffer. The chancellor also questioned why information about UT's participation in the partnership isn't public if UT employees are directly involved.
Weaver quizzed Pinkley on how fearful BMI is about the exposure of financial information in the partnership.
On the one hand, UT's vice president for national labs said in a declaration that BMI "would" suffer significant harm if its governance model were disclosed, the chancellor noted. On the other hand, the declaration stated that disclosure of financial distribution of profits and losses "could" have a negative effect on its ability to lure teaming partners in future proposals to run other national labs.
Weaver also continued to press UT on its function as a public university. When does UT ever have the status of being a non-public entity? he asked.
Attorney Paul R. McAdoo and Gunita Singh, attorneys for the press organization Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, filed the lawsuit on WBIR's behalf.
Singh told the chancellor many of UT's arguments to try to keep the operating agreements closed are speculative and conclusory. Some of what UT has resisted releasing also is already in the public domain, McAdoo said.
McAdoo also told Weaver that WBIR is seeking attorneys fees for the Reporters Committee lawyers who have pursued the public records challenge. That's part of what the chancellor is now pondering. It depends on whether he thinks UT "willfully" withheld anything it should have released.
Weaver also pressed Pinkley about why UT first withheld or redacted some information that it later decided it could release. Pinkley said the university first thought it had some exemptions working in its favor that it later decided weren't applicable.
It wasn't a "willful" move, he said.
The chancellor also noted that while Becker made his formal records request on Nov. 8, 2022, it wasn't until March 15, 2023, that Charles Primm, UT's public records coordinator, replied that some records responsive to his request were now available for inspection.
Weaver reminded the lawyers Friday that the Tennessee open records statute states the keeper of public records has seven business days to either make them available, deny the request in writing or "provide the requestor a written explanation of the time reasonably necessary to produce the records."
UT apparently didn't do that, Weaver said. But WBIR also didn't challenge that, he noted.