A-72-24 Alex Rosetti v. Ramapo-Indian Hills Regional High School Board of Education

SYLLABUS

This syllabus is not part of the Court’s opinion. It has been prepared by the Office

of the Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor

approved by the Court and may not summarize all portions of the opinion.

Alex Rosetti v. Ramapo-Indian Hills Regional High School Board of Education

(A-72-24) (090375)

Argued January 5, 2026 -- Decided June 11, 2026

JUSTICE PIERRE-LOUIS, writing for a unanimous Court.

In this appeal, the Court considers whether logs of personal, private email

accounts containing government-related emails are government records pursuant to

the Open Public Records Act (OPRA).

In January 2023, respondent Alex Rosetti made an OPRA request to the

Ramapo-Indian Hills Regional High School Board of Education and its records

custodian, Thomas Lambe (collectively, the Board) seeking certain records,

including “email logs of all past and current Board members for all email accounts

in which they have conducted or discussed Board of Education matters.” The Board

produced a redacted log derived from Board-issued government email accounts, but

it did not produce email logs from Board members’ personal email accounts which

they used to conduct Board business. Rosetti reaffirmed his position that the Board

is required to produce the requested email logs.

In December 2023, the trial court denied Rosetti’s request. The Appellate

Division reversed and held that email logs from Board members’ personal email

accounts discussing Board business are subject to OPRA disclosure. 481 N.J. Super.

1, 12 (App. Div. 2025). The Court granted certification. 260 N.J. 604 (2025).

HELD: Logs of government-related emails contained in personal email accounts

are government records under OPRA.

1. Under OPRA, “all government records shall be subject to public access unless

exempt.” N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1. Emails fall within OPRA’s definition of a “record.”

Id. at -1.1. In Paff v. Galloway Township, the Court held that a log of electronically

stored information in emails also qualifies as a government record under OPRA.

See 229 N.J. 340, 357 (2017). The Court determined that this extraction of specific

electronically stored information is not the creation of a new record, but rather

disclosure of existing government records. Id. at 353. In Simmons v. Mercado, the

Court held that complaint-summonses created by Millville Police Department

1

officers were subject to disclosure, regardless of who maintained the files or where

they were maintained. 247 N.J. 24, 29, 40-41 (2021). And OPRA’s broad reach

includes communications on personal devices and records contained in personal

accounts, so long as those records involve government business. (pp. 13-17)

2. Here, the Board must produce logs of government-related emails found within the

Board members’ private email accounts. During the pendency of this litigation,

Rosetti sought “a Galloway-type email log” -- one generated electronically using

metadata from an email server. Rosetti later conceded, however, that logs of Board

members’ private email accounts consisting only of emails between Board members

would suffice. Rosetti even suggested a search procedure that essentially requires

Board members to search their inboxes as well as their trash, sent, and any other

relevant folders for messages to or from other Board members. The Court agrees

that such a log would be acceptable and responsive to Rosetti’s OPRA request and

holds that the Board and its members must search their personal email accounts in

this manner, or by any other acceptable method that will yield the Board-related

emails, in order to create logs of government-related emails housed in those personal

email accounts. After Board members complete searches of their private email

accounts and produce a log or logs of government-related emails, they should submit

a certification detailing the searches they conducted so that, on review, a court can

assess whether proper searches were completed. (pp. 18-21)

3. Rosetti’s OPRA request for “[e]mail log[s] of Board Members from their own

personal email addresses” was overbroad. It seemingly requested logs of entire

private email accounts, irrespective of the amount of non-government-related

messages the accounts might contain. The Appellate Division’s ruling was also very

broad in its holding that “email logs of the Board members’ private servers sought

by Rosetti are subject to OPRA because the emails discuss Board business and were

made by the Board members.” 481 N.J. Super. at 12. The Court does not find that

logs of entire private email accounts are government records by virtue of the fact

that government-related emails might be present in those accounts. It is only the log

of government-related emails that is a government record. (pp. 21-22)

4. Government agencies should strongly advise their employees, elected officials,

and others engaged in government-related business to refrain from using their

personal email accounts when conducting government-related business. (p. 23)

AFFIRMED AS MODIFIED.

CHIEF JUSTICE RABNER and JUSTICES PATTERSON, WAINER APTER,

FASCIALE, NORIEGA, and HOFFMAN join in JUSTICE PIERRE-LOUIS’s

opinion.

2

SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY

A-72 September Term 2024

090375

Alex Rosetti,

Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.

Ramapo-Indian Hills

Regional High School

Board of Education

and Thomas Lambe,

in his official capacity

as Records Custodian,

Defendants-Appellants.

On certification to the Superior Court,

Appellate Division, whose opinion is reported at

481 N.J. Super. 1 (App. Div. 2025).

Argued Decided

January 5, 2026 June 11, 2026

Jonathan F. Cohen argued the cause for appellants (Plosia

Cohen, attorneys; Jonathan F. Cohen, of counsel and on

the briefs, and Veronica A. Acevedo, on the briefs).

Donald M. Doherty, Jr., argued the cause for respondent

(The Law Office of Donald M. Doherty, Jr., attorneys;

Donald M. Doherty, Jr., on the brief).

Benjamin M. Shultz, Assistant Attorney General, argued

the cause for amicus curiae Attorney General of New

Jersey (Matthew J. Platkin, Attorney General, attorney;

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Jeremy M. Feigenbaum, Solicitor General, Benjamin M.

Shultz, Christopher Weber, and Raymond R. Chance, III,

Assistant Attorneys General, of counsel, and Sara M.

Gregory, Assistant Attorney General, of counsel and on

the brief, and Ivonnely Colon-Fung, Deputy Attorney

General, on the brief).

Carl R. Woodward, III, argued the cause for amici curiae

New Jersey State League of Municipalities and New

Jersey Institute of Local Government Attorneys (Carella,

Byrne, Cecchi, Olstein, Brody & Agnello, attorneys; Carl

R. Woodward, III, on the brief).

CJ Griffin argued the cause for amici curiae American

Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and Libertarians for

Transparent Government (Pashman Stein Walder

Hayden, and American Civil Liberties Union of New

Jersey Foundation, attorneys; CJ Griffin, Ezra D.

Rosenberg, and Jeanne LoCicero, on the brief).

JUSTICE PIERRE-LOUIS delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this case, we consider whether logs of personal, private email

accounts containing government-related emails are government records

pursuant to the Open Public Records Act (OPRA).

Respondent Alex Rosetti made an OPRA request to the Ramapo-Indian

Hills Regional High School Board of Education seeking certain records,

including email logs from Board members’ personal -- i.e., non-government --

email accounts. The Board responded that it was under no obligation to

provide logs from personal email accounts, as opposed to Board-issued email

2

accounts. The trial court denied Rosetti’s request for the logs. On appeal, the

Appellate Division reversed, holding that the Board must produce the logs.

For the reasons that follow, we affirm as modified the Appellate

Division’s judgment and hold that the Board must produce logs of the

government-related emails contained in the personal email accounts of Board

members.

I.

A.

In January 2023, Rosetti filed an OPRA request for records from the

Ramapo-Indian Hills Regional High School Board of Education and its records

custodian, Thomas Lambe (collectively, the Board). Rosetti sought the

following records:

All comments submitted by the public comments form

received by the Board from August 1, 2022 through to

the date [of] the response. The response should include

the name, email, town, and the question or comment of

the sender. Email logs of all past and current Board

members for all email accounts in which they have

conducted or discussed Board of Education matters or

business during the time frame of November 1, 2022

through to the date of the response. The email log

should contain the sender, recipient, those copied

(“cc”) or blind copied (“bcc”), the date, time, subject

and identify the existence and name of any attachment.

The Board did not respond to Rosetti’s request. Rosetti subsequently

filed an order to show cause and verified complaint against the Board, alleging

3

OPRA violations. The Board answered and suggested that Rosetti’s request be

reorganized as follows:

(1) All comments submitted by the public comments

form received by the Board from August 1, 2022,

through to the date of the response. The response

should include the name, email, town and the question

or comment of the sender.

(2)(a) Email log of Board members from Board server;

and

(2)(b) Email log of Board members from their own

personal email addresses.

The parties reached a bifurcated settlement. As to item (1), the Board

stipulated that there were no responsive records, and Rosetti accepted this

stipulation. As to item (2)(a), the Board produced a redacted log derived from

Board-issued government email accounts. The settlement did not resolve item

(2)(b), the production of email logs from Board members’ personal email

accounts which they used to conduct Board business.

After his receipt of the Board’s redacted log as to item (2)(a) of the

OPRA request, Rosetti filed a certification with the trial court. Rosetti sought

“to obtain email logs from the personal email accounts used by” the Board’s

members. Rosetti certified that “in the log that was supplied there are dozens

of redactions demonstrating Board members using their District-supplied email

accounts to communicate with other Board members[’] personal email

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accounts and even send[] information to their own personal accounts.” To

further support his position, Rosetti referenced “a newspaper article detailing

the intricate, involved and expansive agenda the [Board] was able to vote upon

without any significant discussion at its reorganization meeting.”

In response, the Board argued that government records do not include

email logs from non-government email accounts. The Board filed a

certification from John Chang, the Director of Technology for the Ramapo-

Indian Hills Regional High School District (the District). Chang indicated that

he is responsible for managing and administering the email services and

accounts provided to school district employees and Board members. He stated

that he has the ability to “easily and expeditiously extract data from the

District-controlled Google Workspace . . . accounts, including for the purpose

of fulfilling OPRA requests such as ones for email logs.” Chang explained

that although he “can generate logs from the District’s Workspace service with

relative ease,” it would be “difficult if not impossible to generate logs from

most if not all of the many private email accounts which are used by Board

members.” Chang further certified that even if he were able to generate a log

from Board members’ private accounts, it would take hours to do so, and he

would be unable to attest to its accuracy because he “cannot recover deleted

emails in the same way [he] can on the District Workspace service.”

5

In reply, Rosetti reaffirmed his position that the Board is required to

produce the requested email logs regardless of the location of the records and

the effort required to obtain them.

B.

In December 2023, the trial court issued a written decision denying

Rosetti’s request. The trial court determined that Paff v. Galloway Township,

229 N.J. 340 (2017), cannot be interpreted to extend to logs of personal email

accounts, given there was no unequivocal declaration to that effect in that

opinion from this Court. It found that there was “no showing that the email

logs from the personal email accounts of government officials are required to

be made, maintained, or kept on file during the course of official business.”

The trial court concluded that “[w]hile it is undeniable that [Rosetti] has a

right to the email correspondences from the private email accounts of the

Board members, that right cannot be extended to include email logs from

personal, non-Board-issued email accounts.”

Additionally, the court explained that requiring the production of

personal email logs would place a significant burden on the Board, citing

Chang’s certification. Specifically, the court noted that the Board lacks the

legal authority, administrative access, and technological capability needed to

generate such logs. The trial court also expressed doubt that the Legislature

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would ever intend to force government agencies to compile, create, and

produce records that are not within their control.

C.

The Appellate Division reversed the trial court’s order and held that

email logs from Board members’ personal email accounts discussing Board

business are subject to OPRA disclosure. Rosetti v. Ramapo-Indian Hills

Reg’l High Sch. Bd. of Educ., 481 N.J. Super. 1, 12 (App. Div. 2025). The

court, relying on Burnett v. County of Gloucester, 415 N.J. Super. 506 (App.

Div. 2010), asserted that “records are government records if they are made by

government officials even when the records are maintained by third parties,

not the government.” Rosetti, 481 N.J. Super. at 12. The court reasoned that

the Board’s position would allow their “members’ email logs to be concealed

under the cover of their private servers” and would “prevent Board members

from being held accountable for their decisions.” Id. at 11. Ultimately, the

court held that email logs of Board members’ private accounts are subject to

OPRA “because the emails discuss Board business and were made by the

Board members,” even though “the requested email logs . . . are on Board

members’ private servers and not maintained nor controlled by the Board.” Id.

at 10, 12.

7

The Appellate Division rejected the Board’s claims of technical

difficulty and lack of access due to “the insufficiency of Chang’s

certification.” Id. at 15. The Appellate Division directed the trial court to

“require the Board members to search their personal email accounts to

determine if the sought-after email logs are available” and to “ensure the

parties make good faith efforts to reasonably resolve the document request as

required by N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5(g).” Ibid. “If the email logs are unavailable or

their production is burdensome,” the Appellate Division instructed, the Board

must provide “persuasive . . . certifications [pursuant to Paff v. Department of

Labor, 392 N.J. Super. 334, 341 (App. Div. 2007)].” Ibid.

D.

The Board filed a petition for certification. In its petition, the Board

asserted that the Appellate Division “effectively classifie[d] an entire email log

. . . from an elected official’s private email account as a government record.”

The Board argued that this reasoning “rests on the flawed premise that an

email user can generate a log isolating only government-related

communications while disregarding this Court’s definition of Galloway logs as

far broader in scope.” The Board asserted it may deny an overly broad request

if it is “not worded in a way to identify particular records.”

8

In his opposition to the petition, Rosetti conceded that a narrowing of his

request to a log of emails just between Board members would be sufficient in

explaining the following:

If “A” has been communicating with “B” on their non-

government email account, they simply acknowledge

that they have done so in their certification. Then even

if it is “impossible” to run an email log on their Yahoo

or Gmail account, “A” simply goes to his email search

bar on his inbox and types “B”’s private email. This

will produce an acceptable email log of emails received

from “B” . . . . “A” then does the same with board

member “C”, “D”, “E” and “F”.

....

The remedy on remand from the trial court . . . could be

something else, like searching the account with the

specific email addresses. 1

This Court granted the Board’s petition for certification. 260 N.J. 604

(2025). We also granted leave to appear as friends of the court to the

American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and Libertarians for

Transparent Government (jointly, ACLU); the New Jersey State League of

1

In his supplemental Appellate Division brief, Rosetti made a similar

concession, suggesting that each Board member can “go to their search bar on

their email account, enter the private email addresses of the other board

members and officials” and provide an email log including “the subject of the

email, the date, the time and if there is an attachment.” Rosetti then suggested

that the Board member “redact[] anything that is not a government-business

related communication” and “certif[y] that this is what comprises the log.”

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Municipalities and the New Jersey Institute of Local Government Attorneys

(jointly, the League); and the Attorney General.

II.

Both parties and all amici generally agree that emails related to

government business, even if housed in personal email accounts, are

government records pursuant to OPRA. The parties disagree about whether

email logs from those personal email accounts constitute government records.

The Board argues that OPRA does not require the production of email

logs derived from information stored on private, non-government accounts.

The Board points to the Court’s opinion in in Galloway, stating that

government records include “information stored or maintained electronically

in a database on a municipality’s server.” The Board notes it is undisputed

that the private email accounts of Board members are not maintained on the

District’s server. The Board also argues that the Appellate Division did not

understand the technological distinction between emails and email logs. The

Board asserts that although an email sent from a personal account can “easily

be converted” into a government record if used “improperly to conduct

10

government business,” a log of that personal email account is a separate report

derived from “a huge amount of metadata.” 2

The League agrees with the Board that OPRA does not obligate

government entities to produce email logs from private, non-government

accounts. According to the League, government-related emails created by

government officials using their private email accounts constitute government

records. However, the League echoes the Board’s concerns about the

technological restrictions of generating email logs from private accounts. The

Attorney General argues that email logs containing metadata from private,

non-governmental servers are not “government records” under OPRA. The

Attorney General further contends that OPRA requests must specify a discrete

and limited subject matter, and that Rosetti’s sweeping request was

impermissibly overbroad.

Rosetti argues that OPRA requires records custodians to obtain email

logs of private email accounts being used to conduct government business.

2

Black’s Law Dictionary defines “metadata” as “[s]econdary data that

organize, manage, and facilitate the use and understanding of primary data.”

Black’s Law Dictionary 1184 (12th ed. 2024). Email metadata specifically

includes “internet protocol addresses, the dates the e-mail was sent, received,

replied to and forwarded, and data that may not be readily accessible to certain

viewers, such as blind carbon copy (‘bcc’) information and sender address

book data.” Philip J. Favro, A New Frontier in Electronic Discovery:

Preserving and Obtaining Metadata, 13 B.U. J. Sci. & Tech. L. 1, 9 (2007).

11

Rosetti contends that, without an email log, “it is nigh-impossible for a

requester to seek specific emails or often even formulate a request that is

specific enough to obtain the emails they may ultimately be seeking.” Rosetti

challenges the trial court’s determination that production of an email log from

a private server is onerous and unduly burdensome. Rosetti argues it would be

unfair for Board members to use their personal email accounts to communicate

about public business and then claim that generating an email log from those

accounts is too difficult.

The ACLU joins Rosetti in urging this Court to affirm the Appellate

Division’s judgment. The ACLU argues that the Board failed to provide

evidence that fulfilling the request would substantially disrupt agency

operations and failed to seek reasonable accommodations from the requester.

The ACLU further asserts that, if some entries in the email logs are not

“government records,” OPRA requires agencies to produce the logs with

redactions rather than withhold them entirely.

III.

A.

This State has “a long and proud ‘tradition[] of openness and hostility to

secrecy in government.’” Educ. L. Ctr. v. Dep’t of Educ., 198 N.J. 274, 283

(2009) (alteration in original) (quoting N. Jersey Newspapers Co. v. Passaic

12

Cnty. Bd. of Chosen Freeholders, 127 N.J. 9, 16 (1992)). To further enhance

government transparency, OPRA was enacted “to maximize public knowledge

about public affairs in order to ensure an informed citizenry and to minimize

the evils inherent in a secluded process.” Mason v. City of Hoboken, 196 N.J.

51, 64 (2008) (quoting Asbury Park Press v. Ocean Cnty. Prosecutor’s Off.,

374 N.J. Super. 312, 329 (Law Div. 2004)). In short, “OPRA was designed to

promote transparency in the operation of government.” ACLU of N.J. v. Cnty.

Prosecutors Ass’n of N.J., 257 N.J. 87, 101 (2024) (internal quotation marks

omitted) (quoting In re N.J. Firemen’s Ass’n Obligation, 230 N.J. 258, 276

(2017)).

Under OPRA, “all government records shall be subject to public access

unless exempt,” and “any limitations on the right of access . . . shall be

construed in favor of the public’s right of access.” N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1.

“[D]eterminations about the applicability of OPRA and its exemptions are

legal conclusions and are therefore subject to de novo review.” Simmons v.

Mercado, 247 N.J. 24, 38 (2021) (alteration in original) (quoting Firemen’s

Ass’n, 230 N.J. at 273-74).

B.

OPRA defines a “government record” or “record” as

any paper, written or printed book, document, drawing,

map, plan, photograph, microfilm, data processed or

13

image processed document, information stored or

maintained electronically or by sound-recording or in a

similar device, or any copy thereof, that has been made,

maintained or kept on file in the course of his or its

official business by any officer, commission, agency or

authority of the State or of any political subdivision

thereof, including subordinate boards thereof, or that

has been received in the course of his or its official

business by any such officer, commission, agency, or

authority of the State or of any political subdivision

thereof, including subordinate boards thereof. The

terms shall not include inter-agency or intra-agency

advisory, consultative, or deliberative material[.]

[N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1.1.]

Emails fall within the scope of this expansive provision. See, e.g., Wilson v.

Brown, 404 N.J. Super. 557, 571 (App. Div. 2009).

OPRA also exempts more than 30 categories of records from the

definition of government record, N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1.1, and places on public

agencies the burden to prove that a requested item is exempt from disclosure,

id. at -6; Gilleran v. Township of Bloomfield, 227 N.J. 159, 170 (2016).

In Galloway, we held that a log of electronically stored information in

emails qualifies as a government record under OPRA. 229 N.J. at 357. The

plaintiff in that case requested a log of emails sent by Galloway Township’s

Chief of Police and Municipal Clerk over a two-week period, consisting only

of the “sender,” “recipient,” “date,” and “subject” fields. Id. at 343. In

Galloway, we provided the following example of the requested email log:

14

Id. at 344. The plaintiff did not request the contents of the emails. Id. at 343.

The Township contended that only the emails -- not specific information

embedded within them -- were “government records” subject to disclosure

under OPRA, and it denied the request. Ibid. After the plaintiff filed a

complaint, the trial court ordered the production of the requested fields of

information. Ibid. The Appellate Division reversed, concluding that OPRA

did not require the production of electronically stored information within

emails. Ibid.

We reversed the Appellate Division’s judgment and held that its overly

restrictive reading of OPRA could not be squared with the law’s objectives or

statutory language. Id. at 343-44. In our reasoning, we noted that “OPRA

makes clear that government records consist of not only hard-copy books and

paper documents housed in file cabinets or on shelves, but also ‘information

stored or maintained electronically’ in a database on a municipality’s server.”

Id. at 353 (quoting N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1.1). In particular, we underscored that

“information” is the key word, and therefore OPRA requires a government

entity to provide an email log with certain electronic fields such as sender,

recipient, date, and subject, “provided that it has the means of doing so.” Id. at

15

353-54. We also determined that this extraction of specific electronically

stored information is not the creation of a new record, but rather disclosure of

existing government records as envisioned by OPRA. Id. at 353.

In Simmons v. Mercado, we considered whether complaint-summonses

(CDR-1s) created by Millville Police Department (MPD) officers but stored on

Judiciary servers were the police department’s government records subject to

disclosure under OPRA. 247 N.J. at 29. MPD argued it was not obligated to

produce the requested CDR-1s because it did not maintain them. Id. at 40.

We rejected this argument, relying on OPRA’s explicit language that defines a

government record as “information stored or maintained electronically . . . that

has been made, maintained or kept on file in the course of [a government

employee’s] official business.” Id. at 40-41 (emphasis altered) (quoting

N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1.1). Thus, regardless of who maintained the files or where

they were maintained, “the fact that MPD [made] the CDR-1s mean[t] that it

c[ould] be called upon to disclose those government records.” Id. at 41.

OPRA’s broad reach also includes communications on personal devices

and records contained in personal accounts, so long as those records involve

government business. See, e.g., Wilson, 404 N.J. Super. at 571, 579 n.6

(recognizing that an email exchanged between the Governor and a union

16

president on their personal accounts was a “government record,” albeit one

shielded by executive privilege).

Courts in other jurisdictions have interpreted their open public records

acts to include records in personal accounts. The Supreme Court of California

held that when city employees use personal accounts to communicate about

public business, those communications may be subject to disclosure under the

California Public Records Act. City of San Jose v. Superior Ct., 389 P.3d 848,

852 (Cal. 2017). The court stated that agencies can reasonably rely on

employees to review their own personal accounts for responsive materials,

which, combined with case-by-case review and redaction, adequately balances

public access and privacy interests. Id. at 860.

In Toensing v. Attorney General of Vermont, the Vermont Supreme

Court held that the state Public Records Act’s definition of “public record”

includes documents produced or acquired in the course of agency business,

regardless of whether the documents are stored in private accounts of state

employees. 178 A.3d 1000, 1004 (Vt. 2017). The court reasoned that

allowing government employees to shield public records by conducting public

business through private accounts would undermine the purpose of the law,

which is to ensure citizens’ ability to review and criticize government actions

and promote accountability. Id. at 1007.

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IV.

A.

Applying those principles, we hold that the Board must produce logs of

government-related emails found within the Board members’ private email

accounts.

Both parties generally agree that Board business-related emails in Board

members’ personal email accounts are government records. Indeed, OPRA

makes clear that a “government record” includes any “information stored or

maintained electronically” that “has been made, maintained or kept on file in

the course of [a government official’s] official business.” N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1.1.

Emails, whether created on a government official’s government or personal

account, can certainly fall within OPRA’s definition of a government record.

Of that, there is no dispute between the parties.

The issue in this case involves logs of those government-related emails

stored in personal email accounts and whether Rosetti is entitled to such logs.

Rosetti’s OPRA request sought an “[e]mail log of Board members from their

own personal email addresses.” Rosetti and amici in support argue that

because the government-related emails themselves are government records, so

too are the logs of the personal email accounts where those emails are housed,

citing to this Court’s decision in Galloway.

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In Galloway, a case involving an OPRA request seeking emails between

a municipality’s employees in their government email accounts, we held that a

log of electronically stored information in those email accounts constituted a

government record. 229 N.J. at 357. We determined that the extraction and

creation of an email log of government-related emails was not the creation of a

new record, but rather a reconfiguration of existing government records in the

form of a log. Id. at 353. The email log contemplated and ordered to be

produced in Galloway was one which could be created by the municipality’s

information technology professionals from metadata accessed through the

municipality’s server. See id. at 354 (“Information in an email includes

certain fields: the sender, recipient, date, and subject. Extracting that kind of

information requires ‘programming of information technology’” within the

meaning of N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5(d). (citation omitted)).

During the pendency of this litigation, Rosetti sought what we will refer

to as a Galloway-type email log -- one generated electronically using metadata

from an email server. The Board responded accordingly and its director of

technology’s certification discussed at length the technological challenges he

believed he would encounter attempting to generate logs or reports from

personal email accounts housed on private servers. The parties thereafter

debated in the trial court whether a log of the Board members’ private email

19

accounts, which would also include redacted non-government-related emails,

is a government record subject to production pursuant to OPRA. The posture

of this case changed, however, on appeal.

In his brief in opposition to the Board’s petition for certification, Rosetti

conceded that logs of Board members’ private email accounts consisting only

of emails between Board members would suffice in response to his OPRA

request. In his brief, Rosetti noted that “even if it is ‘impossible’ to run an

email log on their Yahoo or Gmail account,” i.e., a Galloway-type log, an

acceptable log could be one created by the Board member by searching their

private email accounts for Board-related emails. Rosetti even suggested the

search procedure quoted above for situations in which Board members have

communicated with each other using their private email accounts, which

essentially requires that Board members search their inboxes as well as their

trash, sent, and any other relevant folders for messages to or from other Board

members.

We agree with Rosetti that such a log would be acceptable and

responsive to his OPRA request and hold that the Board and its members must

search their personal email accounts in this manner, or by any other acceptable

method that will yield the Board-related emails, in order to create logs of

government-related emails housed in those personal email accounts. Although

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the Galloway opinion focused on electronically generated email logs from

servers, email logs are not one size fits all, as Rosetti himself conceded. After

Board members complete searches of their private email accounts and produce

a log or logs of government-related emails, 3 they should submit a certification

detailing the searches they conducted in their private email accounts so that, on

review, a trial or appellate court can assess whether proper searches were

completed to capture all relevant Board-related emails. This procedure should

sufficiently satisfy the Board’s obligations under OPRA pursuant to Rosetti’s

request.

B.

We briefly note that the OPRA request for the private email account logs

in this case was overbroad. 4 Rosetti’s request for “[e]mail log[s] of Board

Members from their own personal email addresses” did not specify that it

sought logs of government-related emails and seemingly requested logs of

entire private email accounts, irrespective of the amount of non-government-

related messages the accounts might contain. The Appellate Division’s ruling

3

If the log or logs generated by the Board members pursuant to this search

method include emails that are unrelated to Board business, those emails

should be redacted.

4

The Board’s argument that the OPRA request was overbroad was belated, so

we only briefly address this issue.

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was also very broad in its holding that “email logs of the Board members’

private servers sought by Rosetti are subject to OPRA because the emails

discuss Board business and were made by the Board members.” Rosetti, 481

N.J. Super. at 12. This broad language seems to conflate the government-

related emails in the private accounts with email logs of the entirety of the

private email accounts. The holding also suggests that all the emails, or at

least a log of all of the emails in a private email account, would constitute

government records just because some of the emails in that account discuss

Board business.

We do not find that logs of entire private email accounts are government

records by virtue of the fact that government-related emails might be present in

those accounts. For example, if out of 1,000 emails in a personal email

account only 10 are government-related, a log of those 1,000 emails (even with

the private emails redacted) cannot be said to constitute a government record

under OPRA. It is only the log of government-related emails that is a

government record. 5

5

Contrary to the Appellate Division’s remand directive that “Board members

must search their personal email accounts to determine if the sought-after

email logs are available,” Rosetti, 481 N.J. Super. at 4, 15 (emphasis added),

email logs generally must be generated and are not otherwise present and

available in email accounts.

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C.

Lastly, we reiterate that emails related to government business, whether

stored on government or private servers, are within OPRA’s reach, so using a

private email account will not shield those government records from

production under OPRA. The issues in this case could have been avoided

altogether if Board members did not use their private email accounts to

conduct Board business and instead used only their government-issued email

accounts, as intended. Government agencies should strongly advise their

employees, elected officials, and others engaged in government-related

business to refrain from using their personal email accounts when conducting

government-related business.

V.

The Appellate Division’s judgment is affirmed as modified.

CHIEF JUSTICE RABNER and JUSTICES PATTERSON, WAINER

APTER, FASCIALE, NORIEGA, and HOFFMAN join in JUSTICE PIERRE-

LOUIS’s opinion.

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