OPRA - police officer-involved lawsuits 2012-2019
Dear North Arlington Borough,
This is a request for public records made under OPRA and the common law right of access. I am not required to fill out an official form. Please acknowledge receipt of this message.
Records requested:
1. A list of all lawsuits and cases in which any officer of the police department was involved between 2012 and 2019. For each lawsuit/case, please provide the date (month and year) of the alleged incident at issue, whether the alleged incident was excessive force, settlement amount (if any), and final compensation amount ruled (if any).
2. Please provide copies of the complaint in any lawsuits and cases described in above.
Yours faithfully,
UC Research
Good afternoon,
Please be advised this request, as worded, is not a valid request and a response cannot be provided. The phrase “all litigation and cases in which any officer in the police department was involved” could be interpreted as literally every action taken by an officer that results in official action including all Complaints, summonses, citations, traffic violations, restraining orders, etc. These are all “cases” that involve police officers.
In addition, this request is impermissibly vague and does not seek an “identifiable government record” under OPRA. See MAG Entertainment, LLC v. Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 375 N.J. Super. 534 (App. Div. 2005)(finding that a request failed due to the lack of specificity or particularity, when it required a custodian "to manually search through all of the agency's files, analyze, compile and collate the information contained therein, and identify . . . the cases relative to its requests prior to the process of determining what records were exempted or required redactions."). In short, OPRA does not countenance open-ended searches of an agency’s files.” Id at 549.
A proper request under OPRA must identify with reasonable clarity those documents that are desired, and a party cannot satisfy this requirement by simply requesting all of an agency's documents and a request for an index of any responsive documents is impermissible since custodians are not required to conduct research or create new records in response to an OPRA request. See Bent v. Stafford Police Department, 381 N.J.Super. 30, 37 (App. Div. 2005).
I kindly request clarification from you specifying the exact records you're seeking.
Thank you in advance.
Have a great weekend.
Katie Moore, RMC
Borough Clerk
Borough of North Arlington
(P)201-991-6060 X109
(F)201-991-0140
www.northarlington.org