State ex rel. Lance v. Cook

14 P.3d 1069, 135 Idaho 75, 2000 Ida. LEXIS 127
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 30, 2000
DocketNo. 25126
StatusPublished

This text of 14 P.3d 1069 (State ex rel. Lance v. Cook) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State ex rel. Lance v. Cook, 14 P.3d 1069, 135 Idaho 75, 2000 Ida. LEXIS 127 (Idaho 2000).

Opinions

WALTERS, Justice.

This case concerns the statutory requirements for disclosure of financial support in a state election campaign. The statute in question, I.C. § 67-6607(c), is one of the provisions of the Act commonly known as the Idaho Sunshine Law. Section 67-6607(c) requires a political treasurer to submit a written report to the Secretary of State of “any contribution of one thousand dollars ($1,000) or more, received by the political treasurer after the sixteenth day before, but more than forty-eight (48) hours before, any primary or general election.” The report, which must be made within forty-eight hours after receipt of the contribution, shall include the name of the candidate, the identification of the contributor, the date of receipt and the amount of the contribution. A related statute, I.C. § 67-6625, provides that failure to properly make the report may give rise to a civil fine or criminal prosecution in an action instituted by the Attorney General or by a local prosecuting attorney.

In the present case, a magistrate held that Susan Cook, a political treasurer, had violated section 67-6607(c), and the magistrate entered judgment in favor of the State for $100 as a civil penalty against both Cook and the candidate, John Bradbury. We reverse the judgment.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The State, through the Attorney General, brought this action in the magistrate’s division of the district court to recover a civil penalty under I.C. § 67-6625(a). The case was submitted to the magistrate upon motions by all parties for summary judgment. The following facts that appear in the record are undisputed.

John Bradbury was a candidate for election to the Idaho House of Representatives in November 1996. Bradbury named Susan Cook, a bank trust officer, as the treasurer of his campaign. Pursuant to the Idaho Sunshine Law, I.C. §§ 67-6601 through 67-6628,1 the treasurer had a duty to prepare and submit a number of financial disclosure reports to the Secretary of State within specified time frames related to the date of the election. November 5 was the general election day in 1996.

During Bradbury’s campaign, the Chairman of the Idaho State Democratic Party notified Bradbury by letter dated October 22, 1996, of an “in-kind contribution” of $2,860.92 the Party had provided in the form of preparation and mailing of a brochure in support of Bradbury’s candidacy. This letter recited in relevant part:

I wanted to share information with you on the amount of the in-kind contribution that the Idaho State Democratic Party provided to your campaign during the most recent reporting period for your Sunshine report which is due on October 29, 1996. As you know the period covered is from, October 1, 1996 to October 20, 1996 and you received $2860.92 from the State Party as an in-kind contribution. Any further amounts for the next reporting period will be sent to you before the deadline. (Emphasis supplied.)

When Bradbury received the letter from the Party he did not open the envelope immediately but assumed it was a bill which he could deliver later to Cook to be paid. After he subsequently opened the envelope and discovered the content was a letter advising him of the value of an in-kind contribution instead of a bill, he delivered the letter to Cook on October 30, 1996, so she could report it. The Party’s expenditure revealed in the letter was first reported by Cook in the disclosure report required by I.C. § 67-6607(a)(6) for the period from the fifteenth day before the general election on November [77]*775, 1996, to and including the tenth day after the general election.2 The date of the Party’s in-kind contribution was listed in Cook’s report as having been made between October 20 and October 30 of 1996. There is no claim that Bradbury or Cook otherwise received from the Democratic Party any money, brochures or property besides the letter of October 22.

In January of 1997, the Secretary of State’s office notified Bradbury that a penalty might be assessed for Cook’s failure to report the in-kind contribution from the Democratic Party within forty-eight hours of receiving it. The matter was subsequently referred to the Attorney General who, through a deputy, contacted Bradbury to advise that I.C. § 67-6607 had not been complied with and, on account of the violation, a civil penalty of $250 or a misdemeanor conviction punishable by not more than six months in jail could be imposed pursuant to 1.C. § 67-6625. The Deputy Attorney General offered to settle the matter for a civil penalty of $100, as provided by I.C. § 67-6625(a), because there was no evidence of the intent required to prove a criminal offense under I.C. § 67-6625(b). Bradbury refused the State’s offer, contending that the forty-eight-hour reporting rale of I.C. § 67-6607(c) did not apply to in-kind contributions where no cash had been “received by the treasurer” and the funds had gone directly from the contributor to pay for goods or services on behalf of the candidate.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

In May of 1997, the Attorney General brought suit against Bradbury and Cook, alleging that they had violated I.C. § 67-6607(c) by improperly reporting the amount paid by the Idaho State Democratic Party for the cost of preparation and direct mailing of the brochure in support of Bradbury’s election. Bradbury and Cook answered, denying that they had failed to perform an act required by I.C. § 67-6607(c) and asserting that I.C. § 67-6607(c) applied only to cash contributions of one thousand dollars or more received by the treasurer of the campaign and not to in-kind contributions. Both parties moved for summary judgment.

At the hearing on the motions, the magistrate determined that the facts were not in dispute. The magistrate rejected the defendants’ literal reading of I.C. § 67-6607(c), which they urged required only cash 3 contributions of one thousand dollars or more received by the treasurer to be reported within forty-eight hours. The magistrate concluded that the efforts of the Democratic Party on behalf of Bradbury amounted to a contribution to Bradbury’s campaign, which should have been disclosed within forty-eight hours after receipt of notification of the contribution. Thereafter, the magistrate entered an order awarding summary judgment against Bradbury and Cook with respect to I.C. § 67-6607(c) and imposed a civil fine in the sum of $100.

As an additional claim for summary judgment, Bradbury also argued that because section 67-6607 imposed the reporting requirement only upon political treasurers and not upon candidates, Bradbury had no duty to comply with the statute, and therefore, judgment should be granted in his favor in this action. The magistrate rejected Bradbury’s assertion, however, because Bradbury had not filed a motion to be dismissed from the action.

Finally, the magistrate denied the State’s request for an award of attorney fees under I.C. § 12-121 because the court was unable [78]*78to find that the defendants had defended the case frivolously, unreasonably or without foundation. Bradbury and Cook appealed, and a district judge affirmed the magistrate’s decision. Bradbury and Cook then brought this appeal from the district court.

ISSUES

In the briefing submitted to this Court, the parties addressed the following issues: (1) Did the in-kind contribution from the Idaho State Democratic Party constitute a “contribution” of the type required by I.C.

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Bluebook (online)
14 P.3d 1069, 135 Idaho 75, 2000 Ida. LEXIS 127, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-lance-v-cook-idaho-2000.