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NJ Superior Court, Appellate Division/Direct
Bruce Rosen/McKusker Anselmi Rosen Carvelli & Walsh
The ACLU-NJ has agreed to represent Janon Fisher, a reporter and member of the Foundation for Open Government, in an Open Public Records Act case. Fisher succeeded in arguing before the Government Records Council (GRC) that the $1,877 charge for his records request was too high and that the Attorney General did not adequately explain why materials requested needed to be redacted. The Attorney General has appealed. Although the GRC found Mr. Fisher’s request - for all emails between the Attorney General’s Office and the GRC regarding staffing - to be “extraordinary” and thereby subject Fisher to being charged for the actual costs of providing information, the Attorney General could not justify using attorneys for document compilation rather than having the clerk do it. Therefore, the Attorney General should not have charged for the time that attorneys spent merely compiling documents; rather that time should be charged at the (lower) clerk's rate. Thus, the GRC held that the $1,877 special service charge was much too high and, therefore, not justified. Second, the GRC held that the Attorney General should have identified with some clarity what was being redacted and why. The Attorney General submitted an explanation (called a Vaughn Index) that was merely conclusory -- listing documents and simply a conclusory reason why they should be redacted. When the GRC asked for more specificity, the AG did not provide it. The GRC therefore ruled that the Attorney General would have to disclose the information without the redactions, since he refused to submit an adequate Vaughn Index. The GRC noted that a plaintiff needs to understand what is being redacted and why in order to be able to maintain his right to meaningfully challenge the defendant's desired redactions.
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