Right-to-Know Law

There is no blanket exemption contained within the Right-to-Know Law for records that may or may not be subject to a discovery motion in pending litigation. Instead, the Town should have gathered records and analyzed them for any possible exemptions/disclosures pursuant to a Right-to-Know request regardless of whether or not the requestor’s motive was to circumvent the discovery process.

A journalist sought disclosure of records related to the plaintiff via a Right-to-Know request under RSA 91-A. The plaintiff was a former Clairmont police officer. The records sought by the journalist were related to variance Internal Affairs reports against the officer. As part of a negotiated settlement between the officer and the City, the parties came to an agreement to “purge” the plaintiffs personnel file of all references to a suspension, notice of termination, and all events leading up to them.

School Administrative Unit 16 (“the SAU”) received a Right-to-Know request from Albert Brandano on July 4, 2021. The request sought documents relating to “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice” (DEIJ) committees from July 2019 through June 2021.

In February 2017, a New Hampshire state trooper and member of the state’s Mobile Enforcement Team, Officer Wilber, pulled over a driver for having snow covering her vehicle’s rear lights. The following events resulted in the driver spending 13 days in jail and having multiple allegedly unconstitutional searches performed of her effects and person.

In June of 2021 the Plaintiff, Laurie Ortolano, submitted a request under RSA 91-A for correspondence, including emails sent and received by certain current and former City employees. The City responded by saying that it no longer had “reasonable access” to one of the former employees emails from the time of her employment.

The City of Nashua denied a Right-to-Know Law records request filed by Colquhoun for all email communications between two City employees during a specific two-month period. Subsequently, Colquhoun filed an action in Superior Court asking for the records and requesting attorney’s fees. At issue was whether the request “reasonably described” the desired records. Ultimately, the City provided several hundred emails between the two City employees during the specified time period, and the trial court denied the award of attorney’s fees to Colquhoun.

The City of Concord adopted a budget that contained a police department line item for “Convert Communications Equipment.”  When asked to disclose the nature of the equipment the City Manager only revealed it was not body cameras or drones but refused to answer the question.

In a significant decision on the confidentiality of legal advice provided by government attorneys, the NH Supreme Court has ruled that legal advice provided to a unit of government may be subject to disclosure under the Right-to-Know Law.   The Court has in effect ruled that the Right-to-Know Law can abrogate the attorney client privilege when the benefits of disclosure to the public outweigh the potential harm to the government.  In reaching this decision the Court has stated that the Right-to-Know Law is “a statutory public waiver of any possible privilege of the public cli