Murphy administration handed COVID-19 legal defeat as court demands release of county data

Murphy administration handed COVID-19 legal defeat as court demands release of county data

TRENTON, NJ – New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy was handed a judgement by the state courts to release county-level COVID-19 data that he and the New Jersey Department of Health have been keeping a secret during the pandemic.

According to Law 360, “The court finds it’s a public record and needs to be turned over … to Mr. Peterson,” the judge later added of the raw county-level data in question.”

After unsuccessfully trying to access information through legislative channels, Peterson on Jan. 14 submitted an OPRA request to the NJDOH seeking underlying county-level data behind the CALI scores reported beginning in October as well as a log of all emails sent to or from agency personnel containing certain keywords.

Law 360