Tag: OPRA

On May 23, 2018, the New Jersey Supreme Court in Brennan v. Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, issued an important decision regarding the Open Public Records Act’s (“OPRA”) privacy provisions. Often times, school districts and other public entities deny OPRA requests on the basis that they are protecting the privacy of others. In these situations, the Court clarified that the public entity must first show that disclosure of the records would invade a “person’s reasonable expectation of privacy” before advancing any privacy arguments to withhold the documents. This case involved Plaintiff’s OPRA request to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office (“BCPO”) seeking […]

Editor: Sanmathi (Sanu) Dev, Esq. School districts sometimes receive requests for public records from a requestor in another state. Some of these requests come from data mining companies that seek to provide information about school district contracts and vendors to commercial entities. Fulfilling these requests can involve a considerable expenditure of time and effort by the records custodian. Trial court decisions addressing the question of whether an out-of-state requestor may make a valid request for records under the Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”) have reached different conclusions. On May 16, 2018, in Scheeler v. Atlantic County Municipal Joint Insurance Fund, […]

Editor: Sanmathi (Sanu) Dev, Esq. Now and then even the Government Records Council (“GRC”) is sued. In a published decision issued on January 26, 2018 by the New Jersey Appellate Division in Libertarians for Transparent Government v. Government Records Council and Frank Caruso, the plaintiff alleged that the GRC violated the Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”) and the common law by failing to produce draft minutes of a GRC meeting. Finding that the draft minutes were protected by the deliberative process privilege, the trial court rejected the plaintiff’s claims. The plaintiff appealed. On appeal, the plaintiff argued that the draft minutes […]

In June 2017, the New Jersey Supreme Court in Paff v. Galloway Township expanded the scope of the Open Public Records Act (“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. On January 12, 2018, the New Jersey Appellate Division continued to expand the right to electronically stored information under OPRA in the published decision Conley v. New Jersey Department of Corrections, Docket No. A-4754-14T3. The legal question before the Appellate Division in this case was whether data […]

In a published decision dated April 18, 2016, the New Jersey Appellate Division in Paff v. Galloway Township upheld a public entity’s denial of an Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”) request for email logs, finding that OPRA creates no obligation on the public entity to create new records that do not already exist. Plaintiff submitted an OPRA request to Galloway Township (“Township”) for an itemized list showing the sender, recipient, date, and subject of all emails sent by the Township’s Clerk and Chief of Police for a certain time period. It is important to note that Plaintiff requested logs of the […]

In a published decision dated September 17, 2015, the New Jersey Appellate Division in A.A. v. Gramiccioni, et al., 442 N.J. Super. 276 (2015) affirmed the trial court’s determination that, under the New Jersey Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”), an individual may not anonymously file a complaint in Superior Court.  OPRA governs the public’s access to government records in New Jersey. Public agencies, including school districts and charter schools, must comply with OPRA, which requires disclosure of a government record unless a specific exception applies. An individual who believes that a public agency improperly denied his or her OPRA request may […]