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Delaware Department of Justice
Attorney General
Kathy Jennings


Attorney General's Opinions




23-IB07 02/08/2023 FOIA Opinion Letter to Steven LePage re: FOIA Complaint Concerning the State Employee Benefits Committee, Delaware Department of Human Resources

Date Posted: Wednesday, February 8th, 2023

Petitioner alleged that the State Employee Benefits Committee, Delaware Department of Human Resources failed to justify its denial of access to the redacted information in the Medicfill contract.

DECIDED: The Committee satisfied its burden of demonstrating that requested materials were appropriately withheld under the pending litigation exemption.

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23-IB06 02/07/2023 FOIA Opinion Letter to Jack Guerin re: FOIA Complaint Concerning the Trustees of the New Castle Common

Date Posted: Tuesday, February 7th, 2023

Petitioner alleged that the Trustees of the New Castle Common failed to respond to two requests for contracts.

DECIDED: The Trustees violated FOIA by failing to meet their burden of demonstrating that the requested contracts are exempt from disclosure.

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23-IB05 02/03/2023 FOIA Opinion Letter to Christiane Marchio re: FOIA Complaint Concerning the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services

Date Posted: Friday, February 3rd, 2023

Petitioner alleged that the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services (“DHSS”) violated FOIA by denying access to an animal welfare complaint report.

DECIDED: The DHSS did not violate FOIA, as the requested record is exempt under the investigatory files exemption.

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23-IB04 01/25/2023 FOIA Opinion Letter to Thomas Pledgie re: FOIA Complaint Concerning the Delaware Department of Finance

Date Posted: Wednesday, January 25th, 2023

Petitioner alleged that the Delaware Department of Finance improperly denied his request for certain meeting minutes because he was not a citizen of Delaware.

DECIDED: The Department did not violate FOIA by denying access to the requested records.

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23-IB03 01/24/2023 FOIA Opinion Letter to Amy Roe re: FOIA Complaint Concerning the Delaware Department of Education

Date Posted: Tuesday, January 24th, 2023

Petitioner alleged that the Delaware Department of Education (“DOE”) violated FOIA by including in its cost estimate for email retrieval time to scrub email results and including in its potential administrative cost the time to redact documents.

DECIDED: This Office found no basis to conclude that DOE violated FOIA as alleged in the petition.

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23-IB02 01/19/2023 Opinion Letter to Donald Burdick re: FOIA Complaint Concerning Sussex County

Date Posted: Thursday, January 19th, 2023

Petitioner alleged that Sussex County violated FOIA by failing to provide responsive records to two requests related to a certain wastewater facility.

DECIDED: The County has met its burden of proof to demonstrate that it has not violated FOIA by failing to provide responsive records to the two requests.

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23-IB01 01/09/2023 FOIA Opinion Letter to Mike Lang re: FOIA Complaint Concerning the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association Board of Directors

Date Posted: Monday, January 9th, 2023

Petitioner alleged that the Board of Directors of the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association (“DIAA”) violated FOIA at its November 10, 2022 meeting because the motion to take administrative action on a personnel matter discussed in the preceding executive session did not adequately describe the topic subject to vote.

DECIDED: The Board did not violate FOIA by failing to describe more specifically the personnel matter subject to vote.

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22-IB51 12/19/2022 FOIA Opinion Letter to Randall Chase re: FOIA Complaint Concerning the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control

Date Posted: Monday, December 19th, 2022

Petitioner alleged that DNREC had not responded to his request as of the date of the Petition and that the raw sampling data and related internal correspondence had not been provided, despite this Office’s previous opinion regarding these records.

DECIDED: The Petition’s claim that DNREC failed to respond to the request was determined to be moot. DNREC violated FOIA by failing to demonstrate its withholding of access to the requested raw data and the related internal correspondence was proper under FOIA.

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22-IB50 12/16/2022 FOIA Opinion Letter to John Hawley re: FOIA Complaint Concerning the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, the Delaware Parks and Recreation Council, and the Parks Council’s Stakeholder Workgroup

Date Posted: Friday, December 16th, 2022

Petitioner alleged that the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (“DNREC”), the Delaware Parks and Recreation Council (“Parks Council”), and the Parks Council’s Stakeholder Workgroup (“Workgroup”) violated FOIA by failing to adhere to FOIA’s open meeting requirements because the Parks Council’s agendas for its February, May, August, and November 2022 meetings did not give adequate notice of its intent to review or change the surf fishing permit program. Petitioner also alleged that the Workgroup was required to provide public notice of its meetings.

DECIDED: Parks Council did not violate FOIA with its agenda topics. However, the Workgroup is a public body under FOIA, and thus, did violate FOIA’s open meeting requirements.

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22-IB49 12/16/2022 FOIA Opinion Letter to Michael Platt, City Council President, re: FOIA Complaint Concerning the New Castle City Council

Date Posted: Friday, December 16th, 2022

Petitioner alleged that three members of New Castle City Council privately discussed and reached a consensus on the tourism director position and that these members regularly used private and public email systems to communicate outside of public meetings and referenced an email in which one councilmember intended to have private discussions with another member.

DECIDED: As the Council provided appropriate sworn testimony, the Petition’s claims allegations did not constitute violations of FOIA.

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