A Capehart Scatchard Blog

Tag: New Jersey Superior Court

N.J. Supreme Court Rules in OPRA Case Involving Email Logs

It’s not very often we hear from our State’s Supreme Court on cases involving the Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”). On June 20, 2017, the New Jersey Supreme Court in Paff v. Galloway Township expanded the scope of OPRA to require public entities to produce information relating to the “sender,” “recipient,” “date,” and “subject” of emails even if that means the agency would need to create a new document. In June 2013, John Paff made an OPRA request under N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1 et seq. to Galloway Township (“Township”) seeking fields of information from all emails sent by the Township Clerk and […]

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Counsel Fees Denied in OPRA Case for Mootness

On June 14, 2017, the New Jersey Appellate Division in Stop & Shop Supermarket Company v. Bergen County Board of Chosen Freeholders held that a requestor who makes a request for records under the Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”) and receives such records prior to initiating formal litigation, even if the response is delayed, is not entitled to attorney’s fees because the issue is considered moot. Stop & Shop Supermarket (“Stop & Shop”) challenged the site plan application of Inserra Supermarkets, Inc. (“Inserra”) before the Bergen County Planning Board and Bergen County Board of Chosen Freeholders (the “Boards”). On July […]

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Attorney’s Fees Denied in OPRA Case for Failure to Cooperate

On April 24, 2017, the New Jersey Superior Court, Camden County, denied a plaintiff’s request for attorney’s fees under the Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”) in the case Grieco v. Borough of Haddon Heights. The Court determined that the public entity inadvertently omitted a record in response to the plaintiff’s OPRA request and that she made no attempt to cooperate with the agency to acquire the missing document prior to initiating a formal lawsuit. Heather Grieco submitted an OPRA request to the Borough of Haddon Heights (“Borough”) seeking notices to newspapers for all council meetings from November 1, 2014 to April […]

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