Baltimore City wants higher court to weigh in on escalating OIG fight

BALTIMORE (WBFF) — Baltimore City asked a judge to put a key ruling in its legal fight with the Inspector General on hold while seeking a higher court to intervene.

In a motion filed Tuesday, the Scott Administration said it wants to appeal Judge Pamela White’s Aug. 14 ruling and her Aug. 24 denial of the City’s request for clarification.

The City is pursuing an interlocutory appeal, meaning it is asking an appellate court to intervene before the underlying lawsuit is finished.

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At issue is White’s Aug. 14 order requiring the City to “promptly identify and produce” the entirety of its responses to certain OIG subpoenas, as well as subpoenas issued to City agencies since April 10.

The City argued that production order effectively functions as a preliminary injunction and is therefore immediately appealable. It says it has “simultaneously noticed an appeal” of both the Aug. 14 and Aug. 24 orders and plans to ask the Appellate Court of Maryland to stay the order while the appeal moves forward.

A major issue the City wants reviewed is White’s ruling that the Maryland Public Information Act, or MPIA, does not restrict OIG subpoenas.

White wrote that the OIG’s “jurisdiction including the issuance and enforcement of its subpoenas, is not in conflict with or restricted by the MPIA,” and called the City’s arguments applying MPIA exclusions to OIG subpoenas “inapt.”

White also said OIG subpoenas are “legal orders compelling attendance and production of evidence,” not ordinary public information requests.

The City acknowledged White ruled against it on the MPIA issue, but argued the question of whether MPIA applies to OIG administrative subpoenas is “novel, difficult, and complex.”

The City is also challenging the production order itself, arguing it was effectively a preliminary injunction issued before the City had “an opportunity for a full adversary hearing.”

Baltimore City Law Department attorneys called White’s order an “erroneously issued preliminary injunction.”

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In the latest filing, the City said that “even a partial production” could involve more than one terabyte of data and more than two million pages of emails. Some information could be protected by privilege or confidentiality rules and says disclosure “could not later be undone,” according to the Scott Administration.

White’s Aug. 14 ruling, however, rejected the broader argument that the City Law Department can control what information reaches the OIG. She wrote that the independent watchdog “cannot be limited to acting as a supplicant for information potentially deemed ‘privileged’ by or for another government unit.”

Now, the City wants White to pause more than document production; the Law Department asked the judge to pause enforcement of the Aug. 14 order, pause the OIG’s pending summary-judgment motion and halt “all other proceedings in this action” while the appeal is pending.

The City asked for an expedited response from the OIG within one day and a ruling within three days.

Follow Political Reporter Mikenzie Frost on X and Facebook. Send tips to mbfrost@sbgtv.com.