Over the past several years, an organization named the African American Data and Research Institute (AADARI) has been a frequent OPRA requestor and litigant. I don’t know how many requests AARDI has made, but it often files challenges to OPRA denials in the GRC and the courts. About half of the cases decided by the GRC in recent have listed as the complainant, “Rotimi Owoh, Esq. (o/b/o African American Data & Research Institute).” And the AADARI, always represented by Mr. Owoh, has litigated a number of Appellate Division and Supreme Court OPRA cases. However, the Appellate Division recent ..read more

The Supreme Court recently issued a new opinion dealing with OPRA’s section that defines what is a public agency that’s subject to OPRA. The Court held that the County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey (CPANJ)–501(c) nonprofit made up of the 21 county prosecutors– is not a public agency under OPRA. The Court also held that CPANJ is not a public entity whose records are covered by the common law. ACLU v. CPANJ. The Court determined that CPANJ is not (per OPRA’s definition of a covered public body) an “instrumentality” created by “political subdivisions.” The “core question” here was whether ..read more

The Appellate Division’s recent unpublished opinion in Benigno v. Office of the State Comptroller doesn’t break any new ground, but it contains helpful reminders of the legal standards that govern some common OPRA issues. The requestor sought records concerning an investigation by the Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) into the training provided by the requestor’s company, “Street Cop Training,” to various police departments. (It’s not relevant to the OPRA issues, but here’s an article discussing the OSC’s report alleging the company conducted problematic training sessions). The court uphel ..read more

The Supreme Court recently announced that it has granted review of a case that presents the novel issue of whether OPRA exemptions apply to police body worn camera recordings. Fuster v. Boro of Chatham. My post on the Appellate Division’s opinion in this matter explains this case in more detail. In brief, the requestor argues that the Legislature abrogated the application of OPRA exemptions to body worn camera (BWC) videos when it enacted the BWC statute in 2021. OPRA clearly precludes disclosure of the video requested here, pursuant to the exemption established in case law that maintains the ..read more

It’s a bedrock OPRA principle, stated consistently by the courts, that a request must be for a specific record, and cannot require the custodian to conduct research to fulfill the request. For this reason, the Appellate Division recently upheld the denial of a request that sought the “real reason” for the separations of various police officers from employment. Owoh v. Maple Shade Police Department. The request asked the police department for personnel information that’s not exempt from disclosure under OPRA–the “[n]ames, date of hire, date of separation and reason for separation and salary of ..read more

In its 2022 opinion in Rivera v. Union County Prosecutor’s Office, the Supreme Court held that police internal affairs (IA) records are exempt under OPRA, but may be disclosable under the common law right to know. A common law records request requires the public body to conduct a balancing test, which evaluates whether the public interest in disclosure outweighs the need for confidentiality of the record. The Appellate Division recently issued an unpublished opinion reversing the denial of a common law request for IA reports, because the trial judge had failed to conduct a complete analysis of ..read more

The courts issued were many OPRA case rulings during 2023, but only a handful of precedential opinions. However, the three precedential opinions resolved crucial government records law questions. In June, the Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion, Gannett v. Neptune Tp., holding that a successful common law records requestor is not entitled to an award of attorney fees. This ruling ended decades of uncertainty as to whether common law requestors, like OPRA requestors, may demand that public bodies pay their litigation fees. The Appellate Division issued two published opinions involving OPRA ..read more

The Appellate Division, in a recent published opinion, addressed an issue of first impression: whether the exemptions from disclosure of a police officer’s body worn camera (BWC) footage, which are set forth in the statute governing such cameras, abrogate other disclosure exemptions found in OPRA. The court determined that although the BWC statute provides for withholding BWC videos under certain circumstances, OPRA’s exemptions also continue to apply to such videos. Specifically, the court held that the custodian had properly withheld disclosure of a BWC video under OPRA’s exemption for confi ..read more

In Dalnoky v. Pinelands Reg. School Dist., the court dealt with an OPRA issue of first impression: whether a requestor may refile his OPRA request, after the custodian denied the request and the requestor did not file a court complaint challenging this denial within the 45-day statute of limitations. The Appellate Division concluded that a requestor may not avoid the statute of limitations by filing the same OPRA request at a later date. In this case, the custodian denied the OPRA request on October 23, 2020. The requestor subsequently filed the same OPRA request several other times during 202 ..read more

Today’s top news story is Trump’s mugshot, taken upon his booking on Georgia felony charges. Apparently, mugshots are publicly accessible under Georgia law. But in New Jersey, mugshots cannot be accessed under OPRA. As I discussed in this post, the GRC has consistently ruled that OPRA exempts arrest photos from disclosure to the public. The GRC bases this conclusion on Executive Order 69 (Whitman), which exempts “fingerprint cards, plates and photographs and similar criminal investigation records….” This executive order is still in force; notably, the Attorney General’s current Law Enforcement ..read more