Citizens do not have the right to request records in a “preferred” format, if they do not already exist in such a format. Providing prompt responses within 5 business days of a request and keeping the requestor appraised of the status of their request can

Order March 28, 2025; affirmed upon appeal by NH Supreme Court No. 2025-0299, June 17, 2026 

Ms. Ortolano filed a series of Right to Know requests between June 2024 and October 2024. These requests centered around requests for financial records related to expenses paid by the City of Nashua related to various lawsuits and other legal complaints initiated by Ms. Ortolano. Several of her requests asked that the City’s finance department produce records in a specific format or to compile records in a certain manner as desired by Ms. Ortolano. Nashua responded to each of these requests asking for appropriate time to search for the records, and when she requested that certain records be created pursuant to her request, the City explained that their software did not work in the way that Ms. Ortolano desired. Ortolano then filed a lawsuit claiming that the city acted in bad faith in failing to respond to her requests in a manner that complies with the NH Constitution and RSA 91-A.  

The court referenced the Hawkins v. N.H. Dept. of Health and Human Servs., case as well as RSA 91-A:4 to indicate that RSA 91-A does not require a public body or agency to compile, cross-reference, or assemble information into a form in which it is not already kept or reported by the body or agency. It does not require data to be compiled into a format specifically requested by a person seeking information under RSA 91-A. The court reviewed the records which were provided by the City to Ms. Ortolano and determined that Ms. Ortolano received all records responsive to her requests. To the extent she claimed that certain records were withheld, the court determined that what she was really arguing was that the records were not provided in a format that she preferred. This is not a right attributed to her in the law.

Moving on, Ortolano argued that the City engaged in an unreasonable delay in producing the requested records. The court recognized that while the time period for responding to a Right-to-Know request is absolute (5 business days), the time period for producing or denying a request is not. The City responded to each of her requests within 5 business days, asked for reasonable time to produce records, and kept Ms. Ortolano apprised of the timeline for her requests. Consequently, the court further rejected Ms. Ortolano’s bad faith claim against the City.  

The City sought damages against Ms. Ortolano, and the Court concluded that since Ms. Ortolano essentially brought a lawsuit against the city for records which she had already received, the complaint was frivolous and met the standard to award the City attorneys’ fees.  

READ MORE IN COURT DECISION!