Complainant alleged that the Town violated the APRA when it failed to produce certain documents responsive to his request and failed to explain the denial. This Department has held on numerous occasions that the failure of a public body to produce records that do not exist does not violate the APRA. See Murphy v. City of Providence, PR 15-07. Since no evidence existed that additional documents responsive to Complainant's request other than the document already provided existed at the time of the request, we found no violation. We also found that by indicating that the only document responsive to Complainant's request was the provided document, the Town complied with the APRA. See R.I. Gen. Laws § 38-2-7; see also Smith v. Warwick Public School Department, PR 15-13. For these reasons, we found no violation.
