State of New Jersey

CHRIS CHRISTIE
Governor

KIM GUADAGNO

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

DEPARTMENT OF LAW AND PUBLIC SAFETY
DIVISION OF LAW

Acting Attorney General

PO Box

Director

25 MARKET STREET

Lt. Governor

TRENTON, NJ 08625-093

JOHN J. HOFFMAN

MICHELLE L. MILLER

November 5, 2015

Harry Scheeler
Anonymous
Anonymous, NC 00000- 2802
Re:

OPRA Request #W102481

Dear Mr. Scheeler,

You submitted OPRA request #W102481 for all lawsuits filed
against the following departments and state agencies in January
of 2014. Lawsuits shall include those filed in U.S. District
Court, Administrative Law Court, Superior Court and the
Government Records Council, and you list over eighty different
entities.
As such, your request is essentially over eighty
separate
requests.
You
have
clarified
lawsuits
to
be
complaints filed in the U.S. District Court, Office of
Administrative Law, Superior Court, and the Government Records
Council. Upon careful consideration this request must be denied
as it is overbroad, unduly burdensome, and would cause a
substantial disruption within the Division.
As we noted in our response to OPRA request # W102135, the
Division of Law represents 16 Departments and approximately 400
agencies.
The Division handles over 29,000 legal matters
pending in federal and state trial and appellate courts and
administrative forums. The Division of Laws database does not
organize or list matters based the description of a record
sought (i.e. complaint or settlement agreement), nor by the date
a complaint was served or filed. In order to respond to this
request we would need to manually identify files and compile a
responsive document, including wholesale retrieval of files in
storage and a review of matters with outside counsel. As such,

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November 5, 2015
Page 2
this request is unduly burdensome and time-consuming, and will
substantially disrupt Division operations and have a direct
impact on the Divisions resources. Further, the request does
not provide any information to assist in identifying records
such as a case name or docket number. As such, the custodian
would need to survey employees and/or conduct research of
matters that the Division opened in January 2014 to determine
which matters where our clients were served with complaints.
Where an agency does not already maintain a database or
list of records organized pursuant to, or contained in a data
field
descriptor
of
the
general
description
of
records
requested, such a request would require a custodian to create a
database.
See MAG Entmt, LLC v. Div. of Alcoholic Beverage
Control, 375 N.J. Super. 534, 549-50 (App. Div. 2005).
A
records
request
that
requires
a
custodian
to
exercise
discretion, survey employees or undertake research is overly
broad and not embodied by OPRA. See N.J. Builders Assn v. N.J.
Council on Affordable Hous., 390 N.J. Super. 166, 179 (App. Div.
2007), certif. denied, 190 N.J. 394 (2007).
The Appellate Division wrote in Spectraserve, Inc. v.
Middlesex County Utilities Authority, 416 N.J. Super. 565 (App.
Div. 2010) the requestor must submit the request with
information that is essential to permit the custodian to comply
with its obligations.
N.J. Builders Assn., supra, 390 N.J.
Super. at 177, (citing N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5(f), (g), (i)). In this
regard, OPRA does not countenance [w]holesale requests for
general information, Mag Entmt, supra, 375 N.J. Super. at 549,
or open-ended demands for every document a public agency has on
file.
Bent v. Township of Stafford Police Dept, 381 N.J.
Super. 30, 37 (App. Div. 2005). Rather, OPRA requires a party
requesting access to a public record to specifically describe
the document sought, Gannett New Jersey Partners, L.P. v.
County of Middlesex, 379 N.J. Super. 205, 212 (App. Div. 2005),
so that the records may be readily and reasonably identified
within the short time frame within government custodians must
respond. Bent, supra, 381 N.J. Super. at 36-37. As such, 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 agencys
documents. Ibid. (emphasis in original.)

November 5, 2015
Page 3
Thus,
the
Division
is
unable
to
respond
to
your
request.
Should you wish to narrow your request and provide
sufficient descriptive information for complaints (i.e. docket
numbers or case names), we ask that you do so within five (5)
days business days, by the close of business on Friday November
13, 2015.

Sincerely,
Trisha Smith
Acting Records Custodian