Trial judges have the ability to issue injunctive relief against requestors who file an unreasonable number of requests. See this post for an example. However, there’s no precedential appellate opinion, under OPRA, that confirms this principle.

The appeal in Teaneck v. Jones appeared to be the case that might generate such an opinion. It involved a requestor who submitted an extraordinarily large number of requests to Teaneck in a short time frame, in an obvious effort to harass the township. Despite this, the trial judge rejected Teaneck’s application for an injunction that would excuse it from answering Jones’ requests.

Teaneck appealed, but the Appellate Division, in an unpublished opinion issued today, declined to address the injunction issue because it was moot. The opinion indicates that after the trial judge’s ruling, the requestor and Teaneck worked out a resolution, and the Township answered a number of Jones’ requests. As a result, the appellate court said it could grant no effective relief by deciding whether an injunction should have been issued.