Pennsylvania inundated with records requests, lawsuits

A backlog of requests to mediate public records disputes has accumulated since Pennsylvania’s new public records law took effect at the beginning of this year, the Philadelphia Daily News reports.

The state’s Office of Open Records, which was established to mediate public records disputes, has been inundated with more than 4,500 e-mail and phone requests over the last eight months from individuals seeking public records and government agencies wanting to know whether they are required to provide them.

The OOR has issued 450 written opinions, more than half of which sided with the agency. Fifty-five of these opinions were appealed but judges have only ruled in four thus far; siding with the OOR against public disclosure in each.