On January 15, 2026, the California Supreme Court, in City of Gilroy v. Superior Court, affirmed the decision of the Sixth District Court of Appeal, holding that a public agency had no duty to preserve records responsive to a request for law enforcement records, which the agency claimed were exempt from disclosure under the California Public Records Act (“CPRA”), while the CPRA request was pending. However, the Court reversed the Court of Appeal’s decision that declaratory relief under the CPRA is available only when an agency is obligated to disclose records. A declaratory relief action is a special kind of lawsuit seeking the court’s determination regarding a legal dispute that clarifies the rights and responsibilities of the parties without ordering any specific action or remedy.
Factual Background
The CPRA ensures access to information and records in the possession of state and local agencies. The sole function of the CPRA is to provide for disclosure of records related to the public’s business that a public agency prepares, owns, uses, or retains.
This case addressed two issues related to the CPRA: (1) whether an individual or organization requesting records under the CPRA may obtain declaratory relief when a public agency does not preserve records while a request for those records was pending; and (2) whether the CPRA requires a public agency to preserve records it determined were exempt from disclosure before a court has had an opportunity to conduct a review of such records.
This case involved an October 9, 2018 public records request submitted by the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley (“Law Foundation”) for peace officer bodycam video footage from the City of Gilroy’s Police Department (“GPD”). The Law Foundation requested bodycam footage from January 1, 2015, through the date of the public records request, that related to complaints made by homeless persons that the Police Department destroyed their personal property during cleanup sweeps of homeless encampments.
On October 29, 2018, the City responded to the Law Foundation, claiming that GPD’s law enforcement records were exempt from disclosure under the CPRA and declining to provide the requested bodycam footage.
On May 20, 2019, the Law Foundation submitted a follow-up public records request to the City. On August 22, 2019, the Police Department placed a voluntary “litigation hold” on the bodycam footage to preserve the records beyond the standard one-year retention period required under other applicable law. At the time, the Police Department maintained a document retention policy that automatically deleted bodycam footage after one year.
After additional communication, in October 2019, the City agreed to provide responsive footage that did not relate to citations or arrests from sweeps conducted on June 1, 2018, February 17, 2019, or April 26, 2019. At that time, the City stated that it did not possess other responsive footage from the sweeps of homeless encampments conducted between January 1, 2016, and May 20, 2019.
Procedural Background
In December 2020, the Law Foundation brought an action seeking a court order requiring the City to produce all documents not subject to an exemption, and the court’s determination that the City’s response to their requests violated the CPRA by failing to search for responsive records, improperly withholding records, and destroying responsive records while the request was pending.
The trial court granted the Law Foundation partial declaratory relief. The court declared the City violated the CPRA by conducting an inadequate search of records responsive to the October 9, 2018 public records request; that the City had a duty to, but did not, review the bodycam footage before asserting a blanket exemption from disclosure of such records under the CPRA; and that the City’s response to the public records request was not timely. The trial court denied the Law Foundation’s request for declaratory judgment that the City had an obligation to preserve records upon receipt of the Law Foundation’s CPRA request. Both parties appealed to the California Court of Appeal.
The Sixth District Court of Appeal held that because the City disclosed all non-exempt records, the Law Foundation may not seek declaratory relief. According to the Court of Appeal, declaratory relief under the CPRA is limited only to determining a public agency’s obligation to disclose records and the production eliminated the need for declaratory relief.
The Court of Appeal further held that the City had no duty to preserve responsive records it claimed were exempt under the CPRA while the CPRA requests were pending because the CPRA does not govern records retention. As a result, the Court of Appeal held that, because the City’s deletion of the bodycam footage complied with the applicable statutory retention requirements, the City did not violate the CPRA through or by its failure to preserve the records at issue after receiving the Law Foundation requests.
The California Supreme Court’s Decision
The Supreme Court’s decision largely focused on the availability of declaratory relief under the CPRA. The Court held that declaratory relief under the CPRA is “available in at least some circumstances in which all existing responsive, nonexempt records have been disclosed in response to a records request.”
In the Court’s view, declaratory relief under the CPRA is available in limited circumstances, where the parties have an ongoing dispute regarding whether the responding agency’s policies and practices comply with the CPRA and the parties require guidance as to future conduct. Applying this interpretation of the CPRA supported two of the declarations issued by the trial court: that the City conducted an inadequate search of potentially responsive records and failed to review the potentially responsive records before claiming a blanket exemption under the CPRA.
As to the records retention issue, the California Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeal ruling holding that the CPRA did not require the public agency to retain responsive records. The Court noted the CPRA is a very detailed statute, yet does not prescribe any specific record retention requirements. The Court concluded the absence of such a requirement in the statutory text indicated the absence of a duty to preserve records under the CPRA. Moreover, the records retention requirements imposed on public records by other statutes indicated that the Legislature did not intend for a records retention requirement under the CPRA.
Key Takeaways for Public Agencies Responding to CPRA Requests