In Owoh v. City of Camden, the Appellate Division recently dealt with what it characterized as a “case of mistaken identity”–the requestor asked the City of Camden for records of the County of Camden. The request sought various police department records from the City, but since 2013, the City has had no police department, and the County Police Department handles all policing in the City. The court held that the request in question could only be answered by the County, the public entity that maintains the records in question.

After reaching this unremarkable conclusion, the court dealt with an issue that is of interest to all record custodians–the obligations imposed by OPRA when a request is submitted to an agency that isn’t the custodian of the record. According to the Appellate Division, this situation is governed by OPRA’s requirement that the person in receipt of the request must either “forward the request to the custodian of the record or direct the requestor to the custodian of the record.”

The court rejected requestor’s argument that the City was required to respond to its misdirected request by obtaining the records from the County. As the court pointed out, OPRA does not require this. The City here followed the plain language of the statute, by directing the requestor to the proper custodian; it notified the requestor that the County was the custodian of the records sought, and gave a County phone number to contact with reference to the request.