We recently blogged about Rivera v. Union County Prosecutor's Office, where the trial court granted access to the internal affairs reports of the former Police Director of the City of Elizabeth Police Department, who was the subject of an internal affairs investigation that concluded that he used "racist and misogynistic slurs" in the workplace. As an update, the Appellate Division reversed that decision and concluded that the records were not subject to OPRA on June 19, 2020.
Unfortunately, the Appellate Division did not simply deny access under OPRA. It also concluded that the ...
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 ...
Today, The Record published a story about the Borough of Wallington's decision to suspend its Borough Clerk and file tenure charges against him with the state Department of Community Affairs. According to The Record, the Clerk is charged with "serious deficiencies," including failing to comply with OPRA's statutory time frames "43 times in 2018 and 36 times in 2017."
PSWH Partner CJ Griffin is quoted in the article and discusses the potential liability both a public agency and its records custodian (or other employees) could face for violating OPRA.
Most OPRA cases involve an ...
