– Presiding Justice Rubin asking Malden attorney Donnelly on February 12, 2026.
Yesterday, I (Bruce Friedman) argued my appeal to the Massachusetts Court of Appeals on behalf of myself and OpenCommonwealth.org.
At the most basic level, this case is about whether or not a public records holder (the government) can sue a public records requestor (OpenCommonwealth or myself) in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
In general, the idea is that filing public records requests is a first amendment protected activity and the laws in Massachusetts conform to this idea.
I have been sued personally by the City of Malden, Massachusetts FOUR (4) separate times under a legal theory that the city can sue me (a public records requestor) to prevent the release of public records that the Massachusetts Supervisor of Records has determined that the city must release.
The city believes that the decision of the Supervisor of Records was incorrect and that they have a right to sue the Supervisor AND ME under the legal theory of Certiorari.
These four cases are of first impression in Massachusetts, or in other words are the first time in the history of Massachusetts law, that a records holder has sued a records requestor.
How much money has the City of Malden expended to sue me?
We have public records from multiple sources indicating that hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps in excess of $500,000 has been expended since 2018 in attempting to prevent public records access and to fight open meeting law complaints.
The city has refused thus far to publicly account for all of the public dollars expended in the four cases they have filed and prosecuted against me.
A fresh public records request has been filed requesting this very specific information and we will report the results.
I have believed and operated under the research that indicates that the Massachusetts public records law specifically restricts the ability to bring a lawsuit about public records to the requestor alone, and to the attorney general to enforce the law on behalf of the requestor, no other party, including and especially the records holders (the government) can bring a public records lawsuit.
Why? Because of the chilling effect it will have on public records requests and requestors. If the government is allowed to sue requestors, they will and most every member of the public will run the other way and withdraw their request(s). A newspaper or reporter will have to justify the expense and efforts to their leadership to file requests for fear of lawsuits and the records themselves with be tied up in litigation for years, and many important stories would be irrelevant by the time the records were ordered to be released by a court.
Imagine how different things would be without the reporting on Watergate, on the Pentagon papers and My Lai for example. A very significant number of governmental cover-ups and misdeeds have been and are continuing to be uncovered by public records. It is truly one of the only tools available to every citizen and reporter to hold the government accountable and to understand the inner workings of the government, and how they are expending our taxes and using our resources.
The three-judge panel who will decide my case consisted of the Presiding Justice, Peter J. Rubin, Associate Justice Vickie L. Henry, and Associate Justice Chauncey B. Wood.
The video of arguments
can be seen here at 3 hours and 25 minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fretI5uIVXA&t=12311s
The Appeal records can be found here: