In this opinion, the Appellate Division rejected the ACLU’s challenge to a regulation adopted by the Department of Law and Public Safety which exempts from disclosure under OPRA any information that may reveal the duty assignment of a law enforcement officer. This is the first time the appellate court has addressed, under OPRA, the validity of a regulation precluding access to a record.

The regulation exempts a law enforcement officer’s duty assignment, as well as any information that may reveal the assignment, including “overtime data pertaining to an individual law enforcement officer.” The ACLU argued that this exemption is contrary to OPRA’s requirements and the public interest. The court disagreed. It determined that a law enforcement officer’s duty assignment falls within OPRA’s exemption for personnel records. The court also emphasized that the Department’s regulation is consistent with the public interest, by protecting officers and the public.

The court’s opinion also dealt with a separate appeal by the New Jersey 2d Amendment Society, which sought disclosure of the State Police’s Firearms Applicant Investigation Guide. This case involved another Department of Law and Public Safety OPRA regulation, which exempts from disclosure certain types of standard operating procedures.The Appellate Division did not rule on the request for the Guide, but instead remanded the case to the trial court for consideration of whether the Guide fell within the exemption regulation.

As a result, this part of the opinion is of limited usefulness for agencies. On the other hand, agencies should be aware of the portion of the opinion discussing the duty assignment regulation, as it contains valuable guidance for dealing with issues presented by OPRA requests for this type of information.

While the opinion has resolved the key question of the validity of the duty assignment regulation, there are still many open issues. One is whether a law enforcement officer’s overtime information can be confidential. The regulation expresses the Department’s position that there are situations where overtime information may reveal an officer’s duty assignment. The court did not discuss this issue, but it “caution[ed]” the State Police against improperly denying access to overtime information, which is typically open to the public. This tension between the need for confidentiality of officer duty assignments and the interest in disclosure of a public employee’s compensation is sure to generate more litigation.