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 ...
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 ...
Last week, Bergen County Assignment Judge Bonnie J. Mizdol issued an opinion finding that the Borough of North Arlington unlawfully imposed a special service charge upon a records requestor who sought records from the Borough's Facebook pages.
The OPRA request at issue in Wronko v. North Arlington sought the list of individuals who had been banned from the Borough's Facebook page, as well as a list of any words that had been censored and the list of page administrators. In response, the Borough insisted it needed to use an outside IT consultant to capture the screenshots necessary to ...
Last week, CJ Griffin filed an OPRA lawsuit on behalf of Richard Rivera against the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office (ECPO) relating to its refusal to disclose the name of a Newark police officer who shot at a fleeing vehicle during a pursuit in January 2019, killing the driver and injuring the passenger. The lawsuit also seeks access to footage from police body-worn cameras and dash cameras.
ECPO denied the request because it is “concerned” that the officer may refuse to testify before the grand jury if his or her name is publicly disclosed. Mr. Rivera’s lawsuit argues that this ...
NJ Advance Media has written about the recent lawsuit we filed on behalf of Libertarians for Transparent Government seeking a settlement/separation agreement between Cumberland County and a corrections officer who allegedly had inappropriate relationships with inmates. The lawsuit also asks the Court to find that Cumberland County violated OPRA when it told Plaintiff that the corrections officer was "terminated for disciplinary reasons," when the Pension Board's meeting minutes state that he was allowed to "retire in good standing."
PSWH partner CJ Griffin is quoted in the ...
This week, the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a split decision (4-3) in Paff v. Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office and once again ruled that dash camera videos that pertain to criminal investigations are not subject to the Open Public Records Act (OPRA).
While the decision is a serious disappointment to transparency advocates, it does not actually change the status quo. Last year, in North Jersey Media Group Inc. v. Township of Lyndhurst, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that the dash cam video of a police-involved deadly shooting was not subject to OPRA because there was no Attorney ...
CJ Griffin of Pashman Stein Walder Hayden P.C. Submitted Amicus Curiae
Brief on Behalf of Non-profit Organization
in Brennan v. Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office
Hackensack, NJ (May 23, 2018) – The Supreme Court of New Jersey has issued its opinion in Brennan v. Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, in which Pashman Stein Walder Hayden P.C. partner CJ Griffin submitted an amicus curiae brief on behalf of Libertarians for Transparent Government, a non-profit organization. The Court’s decision today provides important guidance to lower courts on how to apply the Open ...
Last week, the Appellate Division issued a published decision that is very important to transparency. While the court's analysis of its standard of review over GRC decisions will excite appellate attorneys, it is the more substantive portion of the court's decision that grabbed our attention.
The case is Conley v. N.J. Dep’t of Corrections, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. Jan. 12, 2018), and it involves an OPRA request that was filed by Kevin Conley, an inmate at the New Jersey State Prison.
Mr. Conley's OPRA request sought “monthly remedy statistical reports” that were required ...
