Requestors persist in filing overbroad OPRA requests, despite settled law that such discovery-like demands are invalid. The Appellate Division recently dealt with an egregious example of this in Port Auth. PBA v. Port Auth. of NYNJ.

According to the opinion, the litigation began in 2016, and involved a 78-page complaint concerning over 50 OPRA requests.The appeal involved 38 requests, almost all of which were obviously improper. One example illustrates the way the requests were written: it sought records of meetings participated in by a named person and any employee of the FAA, since 2009. The court rejected this request, and the many similar requests here, as invalid under OPRA.

Also of note is that even though the plaintiff prevailed on a few of its requests at the trial level, the Appellate Division held that it was entitled to only a minuscule attorney fee award. Due to the requestor’s limited success in the litigation, the court awarded $5400, far below the $46,000 sought by the requestor.