New Jersey Libertarian Party Open Government Advocacy Project: Bloomfield Settles OPRA case

Issue Detail:

 

There is some importance of keeping track--as much as we can--of OPRA and OPMA litigation. The idea is to keep abreast of trial level decisions that the public might not otherwise been aware of. I\'ve tracked down one such case that I didn\'t previously know of, and even though it contains nothing of great importance, I thought I\'d make the Board aware of it. The paperwork is on-line at the following link: Essentially, it\'s a case against Bloomfield in which a local resident, Karen Blanda, sued Bloomfield Township in Essex County because they a) charged her $25 for an audio recording of a public meeting and b) gave her a tape that played at double speed making it impossible for her to listen to it. After Plaintiff\'s motion for summary judgment, which was limited, curiously, to striking Bloomfield\'s asserted affirmative defenses of laches, estoppel and failure to exhaust administrative remedies, Judge Claude M. Coleman held that \"even if tapes were inaudible of Plaintiff\'s machine, Plaintiff was granted access to listen to the tapes and an opportunity to record the tapes at a speed and in a manner suitable for Plaintiff\'s recorder. The actual cost of duplicating the tape is a dispute of a material fact and not appropriate for summary judgment at this time.\" The matter was settled on April 29, 2011 but Bloomfield claims to have no settlement agreement on file that memorializes the terms of settlement. Bloomfield did give me a voucher showing that Plaintiff\'s lawyer, Friedman & Doherty, LLC, received $1,544.95 in costs and fees from the Township. John Paff

Documents:

• This Index File
• Banda v. Bloomfield

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New Jersey Libertarian Party Open Government Advocacy Project: Bloomfield Settles OPRA case. August 11, 2011.
URL: http://ogtf.lpcnj.org/2011222PR/
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