CJ Griffin Represents Shore Investigates in OPRA Case with Cherry Hill Board of Education
CJ Griffin, partner and director of the Justice Gary S. Stein Public Interest Center at Pashman Stein Walder Hayden P.C., is currently defending brothers Benjamin and Daniel Shore of Shore Investigates, an online news publication, in a lawsuit filed by the Cherry Hill Township Board of Education (BOE). The Cherry Hill BOE sued the Shore brothers, asking the court to enter a protective order to bar them from filing OPRA requests for a period of one year. The complaint alleges the requests—a total of 14 requests in about a year, for public records like legal invoices—were “vexatious” and “meant to harass” the BOE. In response to the lawsuit, Griffin filed a motion under the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act (UPEPA)—an “anti-SLAPP” law used to defend people against strategic lawsuits against public participation (i.e., lawsuits designed to silence critics or chill speech). The motion is pending.
Griffin told the New Jersey Monitor that she worried when lawmakers revamped OPRA in 2024 and included the provision that allowed agencies to seek protective orders, that it would be abused.
“Prohibiting someone from exercising their right to file records requests, as well as to access the courts, is an extreme remedy. The Legislature intentionally set a very high bar to obtain such a protective order: when OPRA has truly been abused and there is clear and convincing evidence that the person filing the requests has done to with ill intent, solely to disrupt the agency and not for any legitimate purpose. That is not the case here, where Plaintiff targets a news entity with legitimate reasons for its requests,” Griffin’s brief reads.
Cherry Hill’s lawsuit against Shore also seeks to ban his brother, Daniel, from filing public records requests, too. It appears as though Daniel Shore’s crime is filing a single — yes, one — OPRA request with the district.
Griffin notes that when our last governor, Phil Murphy, signed the OPRA overhaul into law, he noted that the state’s new anti-SLAPP law would help records requestors fight public entities that drag them into court.
“Thankfully we do have a very strong anti-SLAPP law to help people who are targeted fight back, but the stress of being hauled into court simply because you dared to request some public records from your school system is something no one should have to go through,” Griffin said.
To read the full article in the New Jersey Monitor, click here.
The case also received attention in a Shore News Network article, “Cherry Hill School District Sues Reporter for Asking Too Many Questions and Want to Ban Him from Asking More,” which can be read here.
Benjamin Shore also appeared on NJ Spotlight News to talk about the case, which can be viewed here.
