he Colorado Judicial Department cannot be sued for delaying its response to a request for administrative records if the records eventually are provided to the requester, the Court of Appeals ruled last week.

P.A.I.R.R. 2, which governs the disclosure of records concerning judicial branch operations, “provides no cause of action when all responsive records have been made available for inspection, even if the production of those records was delayed,” a three-judge appellate panel decided.

Colorado’s high courts determined several years ago that the judiciary is not subject to the Colorado Open Records Act — unlike the executive branch, legislature and all other governments in Colorado. The Colorado Supreme Court in 2015 issued Rule 2 – Public Access to Administrative Records (P.A.I.R.R. 2), which tracks much of the language in CORA but differs in some key areas such as access to employees’ disciplinary records.