The University of Windsor must reconsider its refusal to process a former student-government executive’s records request and disclose a single figure showing its outside legal fees, Ontario’s information and privacy adjudicator ruled.
In Order PO-4915, Appeal PA23-00129, issued September 29, 2026, adjudicator Colin Bhattacharjee rejected the university’s position that three parts of the request were frivolous or vexatious. He separately found that the legal-fee total was neutral information that did not reveal privileged communications.
The two remedies were different. The university was ordered to make an access decision on the broader records request—not to release every requested document. The single legal-fee figure, however, was ordered disclosed by October 29, 2026.
Earlier conflict did not establish an abusive request
The request concerned the Students’ Law Society, the elected student government of Windsor’s law faculty. Its first three parts sought committee records, correspondence and internal faculty documents relating to the society. Some categories covered the period from February to September 2021.
A fourth part initially sought legal bills for outside counsel’s work on society-related matters. During the inquiry, the requester clarified that he wanted only the total amount paid, not the detailed accounts.
The university relied on an earlier period of serious conflict within student government to explain its refusal. It said the requester had previously submitted a very similar request on the society’s behalf, that the society had withdrawn the resulting appeal, and that he had returned six months later with a personal request.
It alleged that his aim was to revive disputes and harass former students and faculty. It also argued that processing the request would force it to involve affected former students through the statutory notification process.
Bhattacharjee found that the university had not met its burden of establishing reasonable grounds for treating the request as frivolous or vexatious.
The governing regulation addresses a pattern of conduct that abuses access rights or interferes with institutional operations, as well as requests made in bad faith or for a purpose other than obtaining access. The university relied on abuse, bad faith and improper purpose, but its evidence did not establish those grounds.
Once the student society abandoned its request, the former executive was entitled to seek the same records in his own capacity. That sequence did not, by itself, establish an abusive pattern or improper motive.
Nor could the university avoid its notification obligations by labelling the request vexatious. The adjudicator explained that affected parties need to be notified when the institution intends to grant access to information that may affect their interests. The university itself expected to withhold most of the records, limiting the force of its notification argument.
Past adversarial relationships were not enough either. Bhattacharjee found no credible evidence supporting the allegation that the request was made to harass others. People who have contentious dealings with public institutions may legitimately seek records about those dealings, he explained.
A legal-fee total was not the legal advice
The university’s privilege argument raised a separate issue. Legal billing information is presumptively protected by solicitor-client privilege, but that presumption can be rebutted where the information is neutral and does not directly or indirectly reveal privileged communications.
The requester bore the burden of rebutting the presumption. He emphasized that he was not seeking lawyers’ work descriptions, litigation strategies, billing steps or detailed dockets—only one dollar figure.
The university argued that his close knowledge of the underlying events would allow him to deduce privileged information from that figure. Bhattacharjee accepted that the requester was knowledgeable about the matters that led the university to obtain outside advice.
Even so, he found no reasonable possibility that disclosing the single amount would reveal communications between the university and its lawyers. The requester’s knowledge did not turn an otherwise neutral total into privileged advice.
Access decision still required for the wider records
The order required the university to process the first three parts under the Act’s ordinary access-decision rules, treating September 29 as the request date for the specified 45-day timeline. Other applicable access provisions, including notification requirements, remained part of that process.
For the legal-fee figure, disclosure was expressly ordered by October 29. The adjudicator reserved the right to require a copy of what the university disclosed.
The ruling does not determine the merits of the underlying student-government disputes or make all legal billing details public. It separates an unsupported refusal to process a request from the exemptions that may properly be considered when deciding access to particular records.
