The Supreme Court recently announced it will review an OPRA case with major implications for the privacy of public employees’ personnel records. Libertarians for Transparent Govt. v. NJ State Police.

The Court’s website states the issue in the case is whether OPRA’s personnel exemption “require[s] disclosure of the name of a state trooper listed in the Office of Professional Standard’s annual report to the Legislature as having been terminated for misconduct?”

The Appellate Division upheld the denial of this request based on OPRA’s exemption that prohibits public disclosure of personnel information. Its straightforward rationale was that revealing the trooper’s name would disclose the precise information made confidential by OPRA’s personnel exemption–the fact that the employee was disciplined.

It’s not clear why the Supreme Court would want to review this unambiguous OPRA provision. It’s possible the Court wants to consider creating a new exception that would grant the public access to disciplinary information about law enforcement officers. Or, perhaps it recognizes that there’s a need for a precedential opinion upholding personnel privacy; as I’ve discussed, OPRA requestors often demand disclosure of personnel information, despite the clear legislative statement that such information is confidential.