Township Council Meeting — Agenda

MRS L 000300-20 05/22/2020 Pg 10 of 16 Trans ID: LCV2020932426 recently changed its policy in response to the Rivera decision, and BWC to requestors, and had already released BWC footage to another OPRA requestor. Pawar Cert. ¶ 4. Therefore, because the BWC footage does not fall under the criminal investigatory records exception and Defendants apparently failed to abide by their own policy as to BWC footage, it was inappropriate for Defendants to deny Plaintiff footage. Next, the Court must determine whether the Verified Complaint was the catalyst for Defendants producing the BWC footage. The Court notes that municipalities may request additional time to produce records upon responding to a request because OPRA never states that the records themselves must be produced within the seven (7) business days ; OPRA only requires that the record custodian respond within this period of time. See N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5(i). Under statute of limitations, a plaintiff has forty-five (45) days to challenge the denial of a records request. See Mason, 196 N.J. at 68. Here, the Town responded within the seven (7) business day timeframe. However, the Town never informed Plaintiff that it may need more time to determine whether it could fulfill her request for BWC footage, whether due to a chang or for any other reason. Although, on February 6, 2020, after Plaintiff filed the Verified Complaint, d and would now be providing all BWC to requestors Pawar Cert. ¶ 4, Plaintiff had no way of knowing when, or if, the Town would make good on this promise and provide the BWC footage prior to the expiration of the statute of limitations. Plaintiff had to timely file her OPRA complaint within the forty-five (45) day statute of limitations or risk losing her ability to sue under the statute. Because Plaintiff filed her Verified Complaint prior to any communications from the Town that, notwithstanding 10 Pa051