Gannett Newspapers v. Raritan Borough - A Huge Win For Transparency

For advocates of transparency and open government  there was a recent decision requiring  Somerset County municipality Raritan Borough, to reimburse over a half million dollars in legal fees to Gannett Newspapers, which filed suit to obtain documents in an electronic format that facilitates analysis. Gannett balked at the $1100 fee they were to be charged by the borough to provide the documents because the cost would have been a "road block" for the average citizen to afford. There was an article in the Asbury Park Press on 2/6/14 that announced the results of the case:

RARITAN — A court-appointed fact finder has recommended that a judge order this Somerset County municipality to pay the Gannett New Jersey media company a record-breaking $542,000 in legal fees as a result of a public records lawsuit.

The precedent-setting case, which the company won in August 2012, determined that the public is entitled to obtain public records in electronic formats that can be easily analyzed, as opposed to PDF formats or paper printouts.

Gannett first filed the lawsuit in 2009 after the company’s newspapers — the Asbury Park Press, Courier News, Daily Record, Home News Tribune, Courier Post and The Daily Record — sought county and municipal payroll records in an electronic, non-PDF format.

The case since has dragged on largely because the borough repeatedly filed new motions, all unsuccessful, challenging parts of state Superior Court Judge Yolanda Ciccone’s rulings.

Ciccone appointed a special master in April to determine how much Gannett was entitled to receive in legal fees. The state’s Open Public Records Act allows plaintiffs to seek reimbursement of legal fees as a way to give the public-access law some teeth. Before the 2002 law, plaintiffs only were entitled to a $500 reward.

Agreeing that the case served a matter of important public interest, special master Thomas Quinn of the Florham Park firm of Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker said “Gannett was (and is) trying to establish legal precedent that it can use for years to come.”

“While perhaps the Legislature did not envision litigation such as this and the amount of legal fees that the (special master) recommends, the issue in this case is one of public importance and Gannett is the prevailing party,” Quinn said in a recommendation submitted Tuesday. “It has furthered OPRA’s goals of access to the government and its information.”

Public records activists have called the 2012 ruling a victory for the public’s right to know. Concern for the public’s ability to affordably access public records in useful formats drove Gannett’s decision to pursue the litigation...  Read More

Like many other towns, Middletown is fond of providing PDF documents in response to records requests, even when a document was created using a different format. With a PDF file you can't check formulas, work with the data, or sort and search. Analysis of a large PDF file is cumbersome, if not impossible, and requires a whole lot of  work and technical skill. State law, which now has some teeth thanks to Gannett's suit, requires a public entity to provide data in a usable electronic format if it is requested and the file format is readily available.

This is a huge win for transparency that empowers citizen watchdogs!