M submitted a request pursuant to Freedom of Information Law (Public Officers Law art 6; hereinafter FOIL) to the Nassau County Police Department (hereinafter NCPD), on December 16, 2021, which was denied the same day.
After filing an administrative appeal, M received an email from the NCPD on March 8, 2022, with an attached letter and some documents. M then initiated a special proceeding – pursuant to CPLR article 78 -- with the Nassau County Supreme Court to compel the NCPD to disclose the requested records and to award him attorneys' fees and litigation costs.
Since he purportedly had not exhausted his administrative remedies – and had failed to produce a final determination from the NCPD – the Nassau County Supreme Court dismissed M’s case.
But on appeal, the Appellate Division, Second Department, found that the court below had erred, and that an administrative determination becomes final and binding when the agency reaches a definitive position that inflicts actual, concrete injury, and when further administrative action cannot prevent or significantly ameliorate that injury. The AD2 determined that M’s receipt of the NCPD's email on March 8, 2022, constituted such a final determination, and thus, M had “exhausted his administrative remedies” and that dismissal of his administrative proceeding was improper.
As a result, the AD2 reversed the lower court’s judgment and reinstated M's petition, and remitted the matter to the court below for a determination on the merits, including M’s entitlement to attorneys' fees and litigation costs.
M must have found that exhausting ….
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DECISION