Pashman Stein Walder Hayden partner CJ Griffin has published an article in the April 2019 issue of New Jersey Lawyer magazine, titled "The Legal Implications of Governmental Social Media Use." A full copy of the article can be viewed here:
In September 2018, we filed a lawsuit on behalf of long-time client Steven Wronko seeking the list of users that Carteret Mayor Daniel J. Reiman has banned from his Facebook page.
Carteret opposed the lawsuit, arguing that Mayor Reiman's Facebook page was simply a personal page and that he has constitutional right to ban members of the public and a privacy interest in keeping the ban list secret.
We responded and provided over 200 pages of screenshots from the Mayor's Facebook page which showed that Mayor Reiman used his Facebook page to declare weather emergencies and keep the public ...
Many people want to know how they can monitor an agency's spending and determine how much an agency is paying a certain vendor (such as a law firm, plumber, construction company, or insurance company) or even who the agency's vendors are. A "Vendor Activity Report" (or "Vendor History Report") is a very helpful tool for learning this information.
A Vendor Activity/History Report details all payments made to every individual or company that was entered into the agency's accounting software in order to receive a payment. If a bill is paid, then there is a corresponding "vendor" entry in ...
CJ Griffin, a member of Pashman Stein Walder Hayden's Media Law Group, was interviewed by Marketplace regarding a prior OPRA lawsuit she brought against the City of Newark seeking its Amazon HQ2 bid.
The public radio program, “What's in Those Amazon HQ2 Bids? It's Not Entirely Clear” by Renata Sago and Leila Goldstein, aired on Tuesday, November 6th.
“There’s hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, of tax dollars, at stake," said CJ Griffin, a partner at Pashman Stein Walder Hayden, who argued the case. "That’s taxpayer money. When you give tax breaks, that impacts ...
Perhaps the most important thing to remember about OPRA is that there is a very, very short statute of limitations period. This means that if you receive a denial, you need to act very quickly or you may lose your rights to gain access to the record you seek.
What do you do if you receive a denial from an agency or if the agency unlawfully redacts information from government records?
The best course of action is to immediately speak to an attorney, who can work with you to gain access to the records. This frequently requires a lawsuit filed in Superior Court. Again, the most important thing to ...
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 ...
CJ Griffin of Pashman Stein Walder Hayden 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 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 Public ...
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 ...
