With the Supreme Court poised to decide five OPRA cases, 2017 will bring fundamental changes to OPRA law and practice. It’s remarkable that the Supreme Court, which agrees to review  a fairly low number of cases each year, will issue so many opinions concerning this one statute.

I think that 2017 will involve the most significant developments in OPRA requirements since the law first went into effect 15 years ago.The Supreme Court cases all involve OPRA issues of far-reaching importance, including:

-access to police dash cam videos

-the interpretation of the criminal investigatory records exemption

-the application of OPRA’s exemption for privacy

-whether public bodies may file declaratory judgment OPRA litigation

-whether OPRA covers volunteer fire companies

-whether OPRA requires public bodies to provide reports from databases.