## Facts

- The Arkansas State Plant Board receives seed samples from dealers and farmers, conducts germination and vigor testing, and stores the samples.
- C.D. “Duff” Nolan, representing seed companies, sought access to certain stored seed samples to investigate suspected unlawful propagation and sales of proprietary seed varieties.
- Nolan submitted an Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for representative quantities of specified regulatory and service seed samples maintained by the Plant Board.
- The Plant Board provided responsive documentary materials (including test-related records) but refused to provide the physical seed samples, asserting seeds are not “public records” under FOIA.
- Plant Board personnel testified that removing part of a stored sample could reduce it below required amounts for further purity or analysis testing, potentially requiring resampling.

## Issues

1. Whether physical seed samples held by a state agency constitute “public records” under Arkansas FOIA as “data compilations in any medium.”
2. Whether FOIA’s “inspection and copying” framework permits compelled production of physical specimens for removal and potentially destructive testing.

## Decision

- The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court’s denial of Nolan’s FOIA request for the physical seeds.
- The court held that seed samples are not “public records” under Arkansas FOIA and are not a covered “medium” for stored or represented information within the statute’s meaning.
- The court reasoned that compelling production of seeds for removal and destructive testing exceeds FOIA’s contemplated access rights of “inspection and copying.”
- The court recognized that written or electronic records derived from seed testing are subject to FOIA, but the underlying physical samples are not.

## Legal Principles

- Statutory interpretation of FOIA is reviewed de novo; courts apply the statute’s plain language to effect legislative intent and avoid readings that yield absurd results.
- Under Arkansas FOIA, “public records” encompass recorded information (including “data compilations in any medium”) that documents official functions; the term “medium” is construed in line with the statute’s listed examples and ordinary meaning.
- Physical specimens that are not objects “on which records and information may be stored or represented” are not “public records,” even if they contain scientific or genetic information.
- FOIA access is structured around “inspection and copying,” which weighs against interpretations requiring agencies to surrender consumable or destructible physical items.
- The existence of disclosable agency-generated reports does not convert the physical inputs used to create those reports into disclosable “public records.”

## Conclusion

The court held that Arkansas FOIA does not require a state agency to disclose physical seed samples because they are not “public records” or a statutory “medium”; FOIA permits access to the agency’s documentary test results and related records, not the underlying specimens.


Nolan v. Little, 196 S.W.3d 1 (Ark. 2004)