In a March 24, 2015 written opinion, on-line here, Ocean County Superior Court Assignment Judge Vincent J. Grasso ordered the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office to pay an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) requestor’s attorney $21,799.56 in fees and costs. Attorney Walter M. Luers of Clinton, the recipient of the fee award, represented requestor Shabsi Ganzweig […]
Posted inNJ Open Government Notes
New OPRA suit: Stafford challenged for not describing denied documents.
A common problem that records requestors face is being denied access to documents that the records custodian refuses to identify or describe. A lawsuit that I filed today against Stafford Township (Ocean County) seeks to enforce the rule that requestors have a right to a reasonably detailed description of each record that is being suppressed […]
Posted inNJ Open Government Notes
Unpublished trial court OPRA opinion.
“Unpublished opinions” are not published in the law books and are not ordinarily written about in legal periodicals. Unless somebody puts them on-line and calls attention to them, they are likely not to be located by people who may want to search for them. I think that it’s important that court opinions, even if they […]
Posted inNJ Civil Settlements
Nutley secretly pays $40,000 to settle police officer’s suit against Township and Mayor.
Alphonse PetraccoMayor of Nutley On October 14, 2014, the Township of Nutley (Essex County) agreed to pay $40,000 to a retired Township police officer who said that Township officials, particularly Mayor Alphonse Petracco, harassed and retaliated against him and ultimately left him with “no reasonable choice but to retire” in February 2013. In his suit, […]
Posted inNJ Civil Settlements
Former Somerset Fire District chairman quietly settles defamation suit.
On June 26, 2014, Michael Gilliam, the former chairman of Franklin Township (Somerset County) Fire District No. 3 Board of Commissioners secretly settled his defamation lawsuit against several fire officials. The agreement, under which Gilliam received $240,000, settled his claims against East Franklin Volunteer Fire Department Chief Daniel Krushinski and President Christopher Fischer, Community Volunteer […]