BREAKING: Bucks County Mom Wins Partial Victory In Open Records Case Over COVID Rules

By Linda Stein, Delaware Valley Journal

April 28, 2023

Bucks County mom Megan Brock won a partial victory over the county government in her open records case Friday before a Common Pleas judge.

Brock, of Richboro, is seeking emails from August 2021, when the county suddenly overrode COVID-19 guidance issued by its own Health Department Director, Dr. David Damsker. He said the science supported more parent-friendly, less-restrictive policies, a view confirmed in the following months. But he was overruled by Bucks County bureaucrats who imposed stricter state guidelines for masking, lockdowns and vaccinations, all unsupported by science.

The state Office of Open Records has already ordered the county to turn emails and other correspondence over to Brock, but Bucks County sued in an attempt to keep information about how they came to the override decision secret from the public. They argued Brock was not entitled to the records, despite the OOR ruling in her favor.

The county claimed the records were either attorney-client privilege or part of a “pre-decisional” process and therefore not subject to the right-to-know act.

Judge Denise Bowman heard the case and reviewed the records in her chambers. She ruled partly in favor of Brock and ordered the county to turn over some of the requested records and to pay her lawyers $1,500.

But the judge also found that the county had the right to keep some records private.

James O’Malley, a spokesman for the county, said the county’s lawyers were still in the process of reviewing the ruling on Friday evening.

“When that guidance was abruptly changed after a letter was sent by the Wolf administration to our county commissioners, I myself and another mom, Jamie Walker, started asking questions,” Brock said previously.

“We came to the (county) commissioners’ meetings. We wanted to know why our kids were suddenly going to be kept out of school through long quarantines, why they were suddenly going to have their faces (covered) by forced masking, and instead of having our questions answered, our county commissioners bullied us, they called us names.”

Neither Brock nor her attorneys could be immediately reached for comment.

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