Central Texas school district officials have sued a student's parents, claiming the couple has buried the district's staff in more than 2,200 open records requests, including 329 since the school year started.
The state's open-records law allows taxpayers access to certain information from public agencies.
The couple, David and Melissa Lovelace, said the requests stem from frustration over a lack of information out of the Lake Travis school board. The Lovelaces referred questions to their attorney, open government expert Jennifer Riggs.
"Every request has sought information about the expenditure of public funds and the activities of public employees," said, Riggs, who argues the district is upset over complaints of wrongdoing. "They have sought information about special education."
The couple's son, David Lovelace, is a disabled student in the district.
A spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, which oversees enforcement of Texas open government laws, said the lawsuit might be a first of its kind.
The district says the requests and a series of formal complaints against staff have gone beyond typical parental concerns. The Lovelaces have filed about 56 formal complaints since August 2005.
"The statute was not intended to be used as a weapon to intentionally divert the resources of a governmental entity and to torment the entity's staff members," the lawsuit states.
School board President Susan Tolles said in a statement that the district had hoped to resolve the issue without litigation.
"However, it has become increasingly clear that the talents and work of our administrative staff and the educational welfare of over 5,700 students have been jeopardized as a result of the demands of these community members and their sustained abuse of the Public Information Act," Tolles said.
More than $600,000 was spent last school year to answer the Lovelaces' requests, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Friday. The district estimates it has copied 100,626 pages of documents.
The lawsuit says voluminous requests are sent to multiple fax machines in the administration office, causing paper jams, and that the couple repeatedly asks for records that had been provided to them or that they were told do not exist.
In addition, the lawsuit says, the Lovelaces have refused to cooperate with the district's public information officer to clarify some of the requests.
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