November 19, 2025

Case Name: Walters v. McHenry County Sheriff’s Office
Body: Illinois Appellate Court (Second District)
Case Number: 2025 IL App (2d) 250071-U
Decision Date: November 18, 2025

In Walters v. McHenry County Sheriff’s Office, 2025 IL App (2d) 250071-U (filed November 18, 2025), the Illinois Appellate Court (Second District) unanimously affirmed the dismissal with prejudice of a pro se FOIA lawsuit brought by Bradley Walters against the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office.

Walters mailed six separate FOIA requests on individual sheets of paper, all in the same envelope on August 9, 2024. Each request sought a different year’s Department of Corrections inspection report for the McHenry County jail (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2023, and 2024). The Sheriff’s Office treated the submissions as a single request from one requester, provided the first 50 pages free of charge, and demanded $0.15 per page for the remaining 113 pages.

Walters sued, contending that because he used “six separate peices [sic] of paper,” section 6(b) of the Illinois FOIA entitled him to 50 free pages for each of the six requests (300 free pages total). He sought production of the records, compensatory and punitive damages, and a $5,000 civil penalty for each allegedly unfulfilled request.

The circuit court granted the Sheriff’s Office’s section 2-615 motion to dismiss, reasoning orally that “[i]t was all in the same envelope. It’s the same request. … It was one request all made at the same time in the same envelope. They are allowed to charge for anything beyond 50 pages.”

On appeal, the Second District affirmed, but on narrower and more textually grounded grounds. Justice Birkett, writing for the panel, first rejected the Sheriff’s mootness argument. Although Walters had by then obtained the records from the Department of Corrections, the appellate court held that (1) the documents were not produced by the defendant agency itself (distinguishing Turner v. Joliet Police Department, 2019 IL App (3d) 170819), and (2) Walters’s claim for a civil penalty under 5 ILCS 140/11(j) remained live even if the request for production was moot. ¶¶ 14-16.

Turning to the merits, the court focused on the exact wording of section 6(b) of the FOIA (5 ILCS 140/6(b) (West 2022)):

“No fees shall be charged for the first 50 pages of black and white, letter or legal sized copies requested by a requester. The fee for black and white, letter or legal sized copies shall not exceed 15 cents per page.”

The court emphasized the statute’s repeated use of the singular phrase “a requester”:

“[C]ontrary to plaintiff’s position, the statute does not provide that no fees shall be charged for the first 50 pages of each distinct request; rather, it provides that ‘[n]o fees shall be charged for the first 50 pages *** requested by a requester.’ … Thus, whether plaintiff’s requests were technically separate and distinct requests for different public records is of no consequence, because it is plaintiff’s status as a single requester that controls. Under the plain language of the statute, plaintiff—the ‘requester’—was entitled to ‘the first 50 pages *** requested’ from defendant—the ‘public body’—free of charge.” ¶ 19.

The appellate court therefore concluded that the Sheriff’s Office fully complied with the statute by providing 50 free pages and properly charging for the additional 113 pages. Walters failed to state a claim for any FOIA violation, rendering dismissal with prejudice appropriate.

Notably, the court did not reach the broader question—argued by the Sheriff’s Office and accepted by the trial judge—whether an agency may aggregate multiple requests submitted simultaneously in one envelope to prevent circumvention of the fee cap. Instead, the decision rests solely on the statutory text tying the 50-page waiver to “a requester,” not to each “request.”

The unpublished Rule 23 order (2025 IL App (2d) 250071-U) thus clarifies that, under the current Illinois FOIA, an individual requester receives only one 50-page free allowance per public body, regardless of how many separate pieces of paper or distinct records are sought in a single submission.

The full Illinois Appellate Court Opinion can be found here.

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