NJ OPRA Blog

Readers may recall from numerous news articles that in April 2019, the Union County Prosecutor's Office (UCPO) concluded that former City of Elizabeth Police Director James Cosgrove used "racist and misogynistic" language in the workplace. The Attorney General issued a press release confirming the internal affairs investigation's findings, calling on Cosgrove to resign, and making leadership changes at UCPO.

After UCPO denied an OPRA request for Cosgrove's internal affairs reports, CJ Griffin filed a lawsuit on behalf of Plaintiff Richard Rivera seeking access to the reports ...

As we have recently written, agencies currently do not have to comply with OPRA's 7-day deadline due to COVID-19.  There is no such deadline relaxation for requestors to file OPRA lawsuits, however. Although there were prior orders by the Supreme Court that tolled such deadlines in March and April, those orders have now expired. Therefore, a person who receives a denial from a public agency must act very quickly. An OPRA suit must be filed within 45 calendar days from the date of the denial.

What should you do if an agency denies your request or otherwise violates OPRA?

Each month, we receive dozens of inquiries from people who are upset that their OPRA requests were denied. The most frequent basis for denial is that the request is invalid as written. Although there are records custodians who will happily work with the requestor to fulfill a less-than-perfect request, other custodians will quickly deny any request that does not strictly comply with OPRA’s requirements.  A valid OPRA request is thus the critical first step to obtaining public records and it is important to draft a request that follows some basic guidelines.

Guideline 1:  Do not ask ...

The New York Times published an great article yesterday, titled "How The Times Uses FOIA to Obtain Information The Public Has A Right To Know." The article explains why the Times firmly believes that challenging an agency's response to a public records request is important to transparency.

Key quote:

Although smaller newspapers usually do not have in-house counsel to litigate public records lawsuits, in New Jersey OPRA provides a fee-shifting mechanism to make it possible for to find competent counsel who will litigate denials on a contingency basis. Newspapers, journalists, and ...

According to N.J.S.A. 47:1A-6, a records requestor who prevails in any proceeding shall be entitled to an award of reasonable attorneys' fees. We have written about OPRA's fee-shifting provision before, noting that without the fee-shift most requestors would not have the funds to challenge denials of access. As a result, the state would be far less transparent.

On August 14, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued an important published opinion relating to OPRA's mandatory fee-shifting provision.

The case, titled Golden v. New Jersey Institute for ...