Maryland's Supreme Court has vacated a $25,000 attorneys' fee award tied to a public records lawsuit that led to the release of records documenting discussions between county officials and Amazon Web Services (AWS) concerning a proposed data center zoning framework near Sugarloaf Mountain. The July 14 opinion in Sugarloaf Alliance, Inc. v. Frederick County sends the fee dispute back to the circuit court, ruling that the trial judge leaned on factors, including sympathy for county officials and concern for taxpayers, that have no place in a Maryland Public Information Act fee calculation.
The underlying case began in October 2021, when the preservation group Sugarloaf Alliance filed two records requests asking why a draft county land-use plan had quietly dropped protections for acreage bordering Interstate 270. The county did not respond for eight months. After Sugarloaf sued in 2022, the county eventually released documents showing staff had been developing what internal records describe as a "critical digital infrastructure floating zone," a proposed data center overlay, in coordination with Amazon representatives. Frederick News-Post later reported that county officials discussed minimizing public references to Amazon during the planning process. Amazon ultimately did not pursue the originally contemplated Sugarloaf-area project.
A circuit court judge found Sugarloaf had substantially prevailed and was entitled to fees under the MPIA's fee-shifting provision, but cut the requested $48,813.62 to $25,000. The Supreme Court found that reduction unexplained and improperly grounded. Under the lodestar method Maryland courts use to calculate statutory fee awards, judges may weigh factors such as hours worked, hourly rates, and results obtained, but not whether a governmental unit acted with an "evil motive" or whether local taxpayers will ultimately cover the bill. The court sent the fee petition back for reconsideration under the correct standard, with three justices dissenting on the taxpayer-burden question.
Data Center Siting Fights Are Now a Records-Law Flashpoint in Frederick County
The ruling lands as Frederick County continues to work through its broader data center policy. An advisory Data Centers Work Group recommended against allowing data centers "by right" in industrial zones, and the county council later adopted a Critical Digital Infrastructure Overlay Zone that has since drawn a citizen referendum petition. Sugarloaf Alliance, which describes its records requests as tools for public oversight rather than personal benefit, has continued filing MPIA requests tracking construction oversight at data center sites in the county, including a facility that local reporting later identified as serving Amazon Web Services.
For utilities and developers tracking load growth in the Mid-Atlantic, the case illustrates that public-records disputes tied to data center siting can continue long after zoning decisions are made, with attorney-fee litigation becoming a significant part of the overall legal exposure.
