In a case of first impression, the Appellate Division held today that neither OPRA nor any other law authorizes an OPRA requestor to file an anonymous court complaint. A.A. v. Gramiccioni.

“A.A.” submitted an anonymous OPRA request, as permitted by the statute, to the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office. After the request was denied, he filed a complaint in Superior Court, continuing to call himself A.A. and claiming the right to proceed in court without revealing his identity. (I refer to A.A. as “he” for ease of writing; I don’t know if A.A. is male or female).

The appellate court said that the controlling principle is that a litigant in a court proceeding must reveal his or her identity, in the absence of statutory or court rule authorization, or a compelling reason. No  court rule permits anonymous OPRA complaints, and the court concluded that OPRA also does not grant such authorization. The court noted that unlike the statutes that expressly permit litigants to be anonymous, such as in actions involving child sexual abuse victims, OPRA does not provide that right to requestors.

The Appellate Division observed that in the absence of statutory authorization, a litigant must show that there is good cause for shielding his or her identity. The court said that the plaintiff here had shown no reason, let alone good cause, for exempting him from the basic principle that litigants may not be anonymous.

In addition to establishing the precedent that OPRA does not authorize anonymous court filings, the opinion contains another important ruling. The trial judge had dismissed plaintiff’s action on the basis that plaintiff did not file an order to show cause and verified complaint. An anonymous plaintiff, of course, cannot verify the complaint, because a verification requires an affidavit sworn to by the plaintiff.

The Appellate Division agreed that this defect requires dismissal of an OPRA complaint. The court reaffirmed the principle that an OPRA complaint must be filed in accordance with the summary action requirements of the court rules.

This is the first time that the Appellate Division has stated specifically that the absence of a verification mandates dismissal of an OPRA complaint. This ruling may ultimately prove to be highly significant, by putting requestors on notice that OPRA court actions will be dismissed if they do not include a properly verified complaint.