The Appellate Division ruled today that a public body correctly withheld, under OPRA’s privacy provision, the home addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses of individuals who had submitted OPRA requests. Wolosky v. Somerset County.

The court determined that although OPRA requests themselves are government records, this does not mean that personal information shown in an OPRA request must be disclosed. Instead, OPRA’s privacy protection applies to such information. The Appellate Division conducted the balancing test required under OPRA’s privacy provision, and concluded that requestors’ personal contact information should not be disclosed.

Notably, the court indicated that the requestor here had shown no genuine need to obtain disclosure of this personal information. This case is another example of how some requestors seek to use OPRA to infringe on individuals’ privacy rights.

The Appellate Division’s opinion continues the recent trend of courts holding, in non-precedential opinions, that home addresses are protected by OPRA’s privacy section. See this post for further discussion of this case law.

Since the enactment of OPRA, many requestors have tried to evade the statute’s protection of the privacy of personal information found in public records. Two recent Appellate Division cases involve examples of the egregious disregard that some requestors have for privacy rights.

In Wolosky v. Sparta, Bd. of Ed., decided January 13th, the records in question contained references to various students, identified by their initials. Despite having no need for the students’ names, and despite the obvious privacy rights of young students, the requestor argued to the appellate court that OPRA requires disclosure of the students’ full names.

Similarly, in Scheeler v. NJDOE, issued January 19th, the requestor demanded disclosure of school board members’ home addresses, despite having no need for these addresses.

While the court rejected the requestors’ claims in both cases, these are not precedential opinions. The absence of precedent means that nothing prevents future requestors from continuing to file litigation aimed at weakening OPRA’s limits on the disclosure of individuals’ private information.

In an opinion issued today, the Appellate Division upheld the redaction of school board members’ home addresses under OPRA’s privacy exemption. Scheeler v. NJ Dept. of Ed.

The addresses appeared on financial disclosure statements filed by local school board members with the School Ethics Commission. The GRC determined that the addresses should be redacted to protect these individuals’ privacy interests. In reaching this decision, it noted that the School Ethics Law does not require that home addresses be shown on the disclosure statement.

The Appellate Division applied OPRA’s privacy balancing test and held the addresses were properly redacted. It found that the school board members had a strong privacy interest in their addresses here, because of the existence of other personal information on the disclosure statement form, such as their personal finances. The court also concluded that the requestor had shown no public interest would be served by disclosure of the addresses.

As I’ve discussed before, see this post, New Jersey courts have yet to resolve the important issue of whether OPRA requires disclosure of home addresses. Unfortunately, Scheeler is not a precedential, published opinion, so there remains no definitive court ruling on this question.

In an unpublished opinion, the Appellate Division rejected the claim that OPRA requires disclosure of students’ initials, where their initials appear on a public record. Wolosky v. Sparta Bd. of Ed.

The records in question were school board attorney invoices, which contained references to various students, identified by their initials. The court upheld the redaction of the initials under OPRA’s exemption for privacy. The court determined that disclosing the initials could lead to identifying the students, and students’ strong privacy interests outweighed the requestor’s interest in disclosure.

Notably, the Appellate Division relied on a 2016 published trial court opinion, C.G. v. Winslow Tp. Bd. of Ed., which had similarly rejected the argument that OPRA mandates disclosure of students’ initials. See here for a discussion of the C.G. case.