The Appellate Division’s recent opinion in North Jersey Media Group v. Lyndhurst has received a substantial amount of press coverage because it dealt with OPRA’s exemption for criminal investigatory records in the context of a police officer’s shooting of a citizen. Despite the focus on records of criminal investigations, the opinion has significance for all public agencies, not just law enforcement, due to to its discussion of the law governing OPRA requests for records of any type of ongoing investigation.

Agencies often conduct investigations into matters that do not involve potential criminal wrongdoing. When any type of investigation is in progress, criminal or otherwise, OPRA permits records pertaining to the investigation to be withheld if disclosure would be “inimical to the public interest.” N.J.S.A. 47:1A-3a. There have been few published court opinions construing this phrase.

In Lyndhurst, the court established some criteria for evaluating whether disclosure would be inimical to the public interest. The court emphasized the risk of harming an ongoing investigation by public release of witness statements, which may cause other witnesses to question or change their own recollections. And it spoke generally of a public body’s interest “in conducting a thorough and effective investigation, untainted by premature release of investigative materials.”

While the court was dealing with a criminal investigation, its analysis of N.J.S.A. 47:1A-3a is applicable to records of any type of investigation in progress. As a result, all public bodies should be aware of the Lyndhurst opinion.