Forging a Career in Open Records Law: On Record PR
Florida Public Records Laws: Avoiding Pitfalls and Mistakes that Lead to Expensive and Costly Litigation
AGG Talks: Background Screening - Redaction of Identifiers by the Courts Update, Breaking News from California
Law School Toolbox Podcast Episode 296: Listen and Learn -- Hearsay Exceptions: Government and Business Records
Bar Exam Toolbox Podcast Episode 132: Listen and Learn -- Hearsay Exceptions: Government and Business Records
[WEBINAR] Exploring the CPRA’s Investigatory Privilege
[WEBINAR] Update: Social Media Meets the First Amendment
[WEBINAR] Social Media Meets the First Amendment
[WEBINAR] Public Records Act - Taming the Email Tiger
[WEBINAR] The Public Records Act - Taming the Email Tiger
Can Virginia Block Non-Residents from FOIA Requests? Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments
Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law (“RTKL”) provides access to public records and promotes transparency in our Commonwealth. A record in the possession of a government agency is presumed to be public unless the record is...more
Lowry v. Rose Tree Media School District, AP 2024-2478 (Dec. 5, 2024). The Office of Open Records holds that registration forms for a cross-country meet that was organized and run by a booster group on school district...more
In Frank Curry and FOIABuddy v. South Western School District, AP 2024-1311, a school district (“District”) received a request for records related to IT operations, contracts, staff, and IT budget from Frank Curry and...more
In Pa. Office of the Governor v. Brelje, 2024 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 65, at *1 (Commw. Ct. Feb. 23, 2024), the Office of Open Records (“OOR”) concluded that requests for all incoming and outgoing email for two agency employees over...more
In Forrest v. Erie City, AP 2023-1701 (Sept. 28, 2023), Erie City responded to a request for a list of all rental properties registered and licensed in the City in an Excel spreadsheet by providing a PDF conversion of the...more
Methacton Sch. Dist. v. Off. of Open Records of Cmmw., 250 C.D. 2021, 2021 WL 6122163, at *1 (Pa. Cmmw. Dec. 28, 2021). The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania holds that a request for the emails of four individuals over a...more
You may notice water being diverted from a neighboring property onto your property. Or, perhaps you have concerns that the property located above yours seems to be shifting, and you fear a landslide....more
As an elected school board member, you are looked to as a community leader and are expected to take a leadership role in representing your school district’s interests. In fulfilling this role, many school board members...more
In a decision applauded by citizens of the City of Chicago and its leadership, the Illinois Supreme Court found that a provision in the collective bargaining agreement between the Fraternal Order of Police, Chicago Lodge No....more
California Public Records Act Provision Permitting Public Agencies to Charge for “Extraction” Analyzed - Government agencies are prohibited from charging a fee to redact police body camera footage in response to a...more
In Serfass v. Northampton County, AP 2019-1664 (Nov. 7, 2019), the Requester sought 911 call records. The County denied the Request, arguing that the responsive records were exempt Section 708(b)(18) of the RTKL, which...more
Previously, this blog address how the Office of Open Records, in Steinheiser v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority, AP 2019-1877 (Nov. 6, 2019), confirmed that local agencies are not required to provide original...more
In Steinheiser v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority, AP 2019-1877 (Nov. 6, 2019), the Requester sought the business card of SEPTA’s Open Records Officer. In response, SEPTA provided a scanned copy of the card. ...more
BB&K's Christine Wood Gives Updates on AB 748 and SB 1421 in PublicCEO - Now, more than ever, Californians have greater access to police personnel records, body and dashboard camera footage and other recordings acquired by...more
In Maciejewski v. Southern Columbia Area School District, AP 2019-1094 (Sept 16, 2019), the Request sought all emails between 10 District email addresses over a 14-day time frame. The District argued that certain responsive...more
In Ruland v. Southern York County School District, AP 2019-0567 (Aug. 8, 2019), the OOR concluded that, in certain circumstances, emails from community members to an agency can be public records. In this case, the...more
In Friedman v. Pennsylvania Office of Open Records, AP 2019-1182 (Aug. 28, 2019), the Office of Open Records (“OOR”) discussed whether all records delivered to and in the possession of an agency are records “of” that agency...more
An entity must be a Commonwealth agency, a local agency, a judicial agency or a legislative agency to be subject to the RTKL. 65 P.S. § 67.302. In Pysher v. Clinton Township Vol. Fire Co., 1237 C.D. 2017, 2019 WL 2017782, at...more
We’ve addressed whether RTKL request are sufficiently specific before, but it’s worth reexamining the issue again in the context of requests for electronic correspondence because requesters frequently make broad requests for...more
When responding to large requests, Open Records Officer frequently identify records that are responsive to one part of a request but not another. Does the response letter need to identify which records are responsive to each...more
Last week, we discussed how the OOR concluded that, for the most part, Taser discharge reports are public records. This week, we’ll examine whether policies related to Tasers are public records. In Ciavaglia v. Newtown...more
The 30 exceptions set forth in Section 708(b) of RTKL are not an exhaustive list of records that can or must be withheld from disclosure under the RTKL. Instead, Section 102 of the RTKL contains a catch-all, stating that any...more
Under the RTKL, two groups of records are accessible—those records in an agency’s actual or constructive possession reached directly under Section 901 of the RTKL and records that are only in the possession of third parties...more
Open Records Officers will occasionally receive requests for the appointment calendars of certain agency employees and officers. These calendars, whether electronic or paper, typically contain a schedule daily activities and...more
In a previous post, we discussed how the OOR in Stooky v. Unionville-Chadds School District, AP 2019-0484 (April 18, 2019) determined that a Requester could seek records under the RTKL even though she already possessed the...more