As discussed in this article, a Cape May County trial court judge recently dismissed an OPRA complaint on the ground that OPRA permits requests only by New Jersey citizens. The article notes that a Burlington County trial judge reached the opposite conclusion in another case a few weeks ago. The public body in that case has appealed, and the requestor’s attorney in the Cape May case said that her client will appeal as well.

As a result, the Appellate Division will be resolving this novel question of whether the Legislature intended to preclude those who are not New Jersey citizens from making OPRA requests. The appellate court probably won’t issue its decision until the middle of 2017. Until then, because of the conflicting trial court decisions, there’s no way to predict how another trial judge will rule if a public body denies a non-citizen’s OPRA request.

As noted here, my view is that it really doesn’t matter how the courts ultimately resolve the issue, because it is impossible to stop requestors from other states from obtaining New Jersey public records. If the Appellate Division interprets OPRA to mean that only New Jersey citizens may make requests, non-citizens will get around the prohibition by submitting  anonymous requests, or by having a New Jersey citizen make OPRA requests for them.