On October 21, 2021, the Lebanon Borough School District (Hunterdon County) confidentially paid $235,000 to a former administrative assistant who said she was fired after she reported the superintendent’s alleged failure to act on a student’s repeated suicide threats. In her August 11, 2019 lawsuit, Leah Driscoll, who was hired by the school district in […]
Posted inNJ Open Government Notes
NJ Legislative committee to mull OPRA amendment that will exempt current and former elected officials’ and current office seekers’ addresses from public disclosure.
On Thursday, June 23, 2022, 10 a.m., the Senate State Government, Wagering, Tourism & Historic Preservation Committee will consider moving S-2871 forward in the legislative process. S-2871, like its identical Assembly companion bill, A-4094, seeks to add the following exemption to to the Open Public Records Act (OPRA). That portion of any document which discloses […]
Posted inNJ Police Internal Affairs Complaints
Police Accountability bill to be heard by Senate Committee in Trenton on Monday.
On Monday, June 13, 2022 at 10 a.m. the New Jersey Senate Law and Public Safety Committee will consider Senate Bill No. S2742. Section 17 of the bill would require every police chief to file a report whenever an officer is hired, fired, resigns, retires or takes an extended leave of absence. The reports would […]
Posted inNJ Civil Settlements
Passaic County quietly paid $850,000 to settle woman’s negligence suit against sheriff’s captain.
On April 27, 2022, the County of Passaic confidentially paid $850,000 to a woman who said that a Passaic County Sheriff’s Captain witnessed her get shot and pistol-whipped but failed to intervene. In her lawsuit filed on September 5, 2019, Tishell Jackson claimed that while driving to go shopping on January 3, 2018, her ex-boyfriend […]
Posted inNJ Civil Settlements
Four Cumberland Jail suicide lawsuits settle for a total of $672,500. Two others are settled “in principle” and one is stayed pending resolution of criminal charges against a corrections officer.
Between August 2021 and January 2022, Cumberland County settled federal lawsuits filed by the families of four inmates who had committed suicide in the Cumberland County Jail between 2014 and 2017. The families claimed that jail officials and employees of CFG Health Systems, LLC, the private vendor that provides inmates with health services, failed to […]