Delaware Attorney General Opinions
Free plain-English summaries of attorney general opinions issued in Delaware, with full citations and the original source on every page.
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How long can a Delaware agency keep extending the deadline on a FOIA request, and at what point does repeated 'thirty more days' become bad faith?
Six months and five identical 30-business-day extensions were not bad faith here. Karl Baker requested 13 years of contracts between the Delaware Department of Insurance and Zack Stamp Consulting LLC.…
Can a Delaware governor's office invoke the pending-litigation FOIA exemption when the office itself is not a party to the lawsuit?
Yes, where the governor exercises authority over the actual litigants and the requester is a litigant trying to use FOIA as discovery. The AG ruled the Office of the Governor properly denied a 9-categ…
Can a Delaware journalist get the date of death of a homicide victim from the medical examiner's office under FOIA?
No. The date of a homicide victim's death is recorded in the post-mortem report (exempt as an investigatory file under § 10002(o)(3)) and on the death certificate (statutorily confidential for 40 year…
What happens when a Delaware agency simply ignores a FOIA request and the AG's request for a response?
Yes, violation. The Office of the Auditor of Accounts violated FOIA by failing to respond at all to Jack Guerin's July 29, 2022 request for policy work products by My Campaign Group, Innovative Consul…
When a Delaware council majority avoids a public meeting by signing checks at private offices in series, is that a FOIA violation?
Yes. A quorum of the Georgetown Town Council violated FOIA when three councilmembers used serial private visits at one councilmember's workplace to sign and deliver a $24,750 grant check to the George…
If a state public corporation says committee meeting minutes are exempt because they discuss confidential financial information, can it skip a sworn search?
The Fort DuPont Redevelopment and Preservation Corporation violated FOIA. The FDRPC's counsel argued, in an unsworn correction to its Response, that no Finance Committee meeting actually occurred to d…
Does it count as a Delaware FOIA violation if the request goes to a former coordinator's spam folder?
No. The AG ruled the City of Harrington did not violate FOIA when the request reached a former FOIA coordinator's email and ended up in spam, because the new coordinator regularly checked that mailbox…
What can I do if a Delaware advisory committee never posted minutes for its meetings?
It is a FOIA violation. The AG ruled the Childhood Lead Poisoning Committee and its subcommittees violated 29 Del. C. § 10004(f) by not maintaining or posting minutes for many 2021 and 2022 meetings, …
Does Delaware FOIA require school boards to give a public comment period, and how much advance notice must they give if a meeting time is moved up by an hour?
FOIA does not require a public comment period (other laws may). But a rescheduled meeting needs at least 24 hours' notice and a written explanation. The Caesar Rodney School Board changed its April 12…
Can DelDOT use 'potential litigation' to deny every record about a development dispute, including the entire DelDOT manual?
No. The AG ruled DelDOT couldn't use 29 Del. C. § 10002(o)(9) as a blanket bar to records about a Sussex County subdivision's propane lines, the streets dedication, and every edition of DelDOT's Devel…
What happens if a Delaware agency misses the 15-day FOIA deadline but eventually responds with an affidavit?
Mooted. The AG ruled the Delaware Auditor of Accounts missed the 15-business-day deadline to respond to a FOIA request about its pharmacist provider-status report, but the petition was moot once AOA l…
Can a Delaware town council vote on raises and a water-line project that aren't on the meeting agenda?
No. The AG ruled the Town of Blades violated FOIA by voting on employee bonuses, cost-of-living raises, and a water-line extension that never appeared on the meeting agenda, and by discussing general …
Must Wilmington compile a custom Excel of parking ticket data with appeal status if no single record contains all the requested fields?
No. The City of Wilmington did not violate FOIA when it produced an Excel of parking ticket data missing some fields Markham requested (date of appeal, ruling on appeal, court hearing dates). The City…
Does a Delaware General Assembly committee have to provide an in-person 'anchor location' for a virtual hearing, and can a witness file a FOIA petition if she gets cut off after testifying?
Mostly outside FOIA scope. The Senate Elections and Government Affairs Committee held a fully virtual meeting on June 15, 2022. Janice Lorrah's three claims (no anchor location, voting outside meeting…
Can a contractor with claims pending before the DelDOT Claims Committee use FOIA to gather DelDOT's TIFIA loan records, or is that pending litigation under FOIA?
DelDOT did not violate FOIA. The contractor's claim review process under DelDOT contract Section 105.15 (claim filed, response, hearing before a five-member Claims Committee with evidence and a writte…
What can a Delaware municipality charge for FOIA fees, and does it have to post meeting agendas online?
Mixed result. The Town of Blades violated FOIA on the records side: it charged a $50 'Additional Labor Fee' plus attorney research fees on a denied request without first sending an itemized written co…
If four members of a thirteen-member city council meet at a councilmember's house, is that a 'meeting' under Delaware's open-meetings law?
No prima facie violation. Wilmington City Council requires seven members for a quorum, not three. The Petition only showed meetings of up to four councilmembers, which by itself does not establish a F…
Can a Delaware city charge a journalist a $45-per-hour fee to find ten years of grant records?
Yes, after correction. The AG ruled the City of Wilmington did not violate FOIA on its 10-year contract/grant request once it corrected its initial $45 hourly rate to $22.45, the rate of the lowest-pa…
Can a Delaware city redact the resumes of people nominated to volunteer boards under FOIA?
Mostly no. The AG ruled the City of Newark failed to justify heavy redactions on volunteer board nominees' resumes; volunteer board members are more like candidates for public office than job applican…
Can a Delaware school board discuss substitute teacher pay rates in executive session under the personnel exception?
No. The Sussex County Vo-Tech Board violated FOIA when it discussed raising substitute compensation (Class A from $116 to $179, Class B from $99 to $143, Class C from $74 to $113 per day) in executive…
Can a Delaware agency refuse to release records about how it killed a bird flu flock by claiming veterinary privilege and a federal Privacy Act exemption?
Not without specifics. The Department of Agriculture pointed at the federal Privacy Act, the Delaware veterinary-confidentiality statute, the FOIA investigatory-files exemption, and the working-draft …
Does a Delaware Budget Committee violate FOIA when a quorum meets without public notice to discuss employee bonuses?
Yes. The City of Harrington's Budget Committee violated FOIA's open meeting requirements when a quorum (two of three members) met privately on February 22, 2022 with the City Manager, Chief of Police,…
Can a journalist get use-of-force data, prison reports, and video-retention policies from the Delaware Department of Correction under FOIA?
DOC properly withheld the use-of-force data and reports because they pertain to pending federal litigation against DOC employees (Davis v. Neal). DOC failed on its statutory and investigatory-file def…
Can a Delaware state office shield audit working papers from a FOIA request just by calling them confidential?
No. The AG ruled the Delaware Office of the Auditor of Accounts violated FOIA by redacting audit working papers without citing any Delaware statute or case law that recognizes a working-papers privile…
Can a Delaware town split a public comment period across two meetings and still meet open-meeting rules?
No clear violation. The AG could not find a FOIA violation by Fenwick Island when its public comment period for a low-speed vehicle ordinance was split between a hearing and the next Council meeting, …
Can a Delaware lawyer get police accident reports for officer-involved crashes through FOIA, or are uniform traffic collision reports exempt?
Wilmington did not violate FOIA. Uniform traffic collision reports are statutorily exempt under 21 Del. C. § 313(b) (incorporated into FOIA through § 10002(o)(6)), and they also fall within the invest…
When a Delaware agency claims it produced everything responsive to a FOIA request, what proof must it provide?
Yes. The Office of the Auditor of Accounts (AOA) violated FOIA by failing to include a sworn affidavit describing its search efforts. AOA produced two statements of work in response to a contracts/RFP…
Can a Delaware village resident FOIA the home addresses and phone numbers of all eligible voters in the village?
The AG declined to decide. Whether voter home addresses and phone numbers are public typically turns on whether they are made publicly available through other Delaware election laws (like 15 Del. C. §…
Can a Delaware village hold a fully virtual public meeting during the COVID emergency, and is an agenda that just lists 'officer reports' and 'old business' enough to satisfy FOIA?
Two of the three FOIA claims succeeded. The Village was allowed to hold a fully virtual meeting in March 2022 because Delaware was still under a public-health state of emergency. But it failed to prov…
Can a Delaware agency satisfy a FOIA request by sending a link to the source webpage instead of attaching the records?
Yes. The AG ruled the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services did not violate FOIA when it answered a request for records supporting a COVID-19 booster effectiveness claim by providing links…
When DMV's database can't easily search 2.5 million records, can DelDOT charge me for a DTI programmer to write a custom search?
Yes. DelDOT's DMV runs on a 20-year-old DOS-based system. Without a custom DTI program, manually finding salvage-certificate records would have cost $9 million and taken one employee 200 years. DelDOT…
Can a Delaware agency withhold all PFAS test results and internal emails about a statutorily required drinking-water survey by labeling everything a 'working draft'?
No. Delaware's working-draft exemption protects actual draft documents and emails proposing specific revisions to those drafts, but it does not cover raw test data or internal communications that aren…
Can a Delaware family obtain DHSS investigation records about a long-term care facility incident under FOIA?
No. DHSS properly denied a family member's FOIA request for all records relating to an alleged assault at a long-term care facility. The Division of Health Care Quality (DHCQ) investigates abuse, negl…
Are a Delaware captive insurance company's financial statements and dividend records public records under FOIA?
No. The Delaware Department of Insurance properly denied a request for Brighthouse Reinsurance Company of Delaware's annual and quarterly financial statements and dividend records. Those records were …
If a Delaware charter school's Board committee gets renamed as a 'team' that includes some former committee members, does the rebranded group escape FOIA's open-meeting requirements?
No. The Charter School of Wilmington restructured its Advancement Committee and called the new group an 'Advancement Team' that met December 3, 2021 without notice or minutes. The school admitted its …
Can a Delaware public body hold an executive session before its publicly noticed meeting starts?
Yes, violation. The Diamond State Port Corporation Board held an executive session an hour before its noticed January 21, 2022 meeting start time, with no agenda mention of the executive session and n…
If you ask one Delaware agency for crime statistics they don't have, can you complain when they tell you no, even if a different state agency has the data?
Mooted out. Amanda Fries asked DELJIS for 2020 and 2021 juvenile crime statistics. DELJIS doesn't compile that report; the Delaware State Police's State Bureau of Identification (SBI) does, for the FB…
Can a Delaware agency hide an entire DMV form from FOIA just because part of it contains personal information?
Partial violation. The AG ruled DelDOT violated FOIA by issuing a blanket denial of all MV215 salvage certificate forms based on the DMV privacy statute. Some portions of the forms are not 'personal i…
Are records of Delaware's Domestic Violence Fatal Incident Review process public?
No. The AG ruled the Domestic Violence Coordinating Council properly denied a Delaware Online reporter's request for the High Risk Team's documentation of a victim killed in 2021. 13 Del. C. § 2105(h)…
If two extra Delaware school board members show up at a board committee meeting and a quorum is suddenly present, do they have to cancel the meeting?
No, but the Board's caution wasn't a FOIA violation either. The Board Policy Review Committee adjourned the October 27, 2021 meeting when two non-Committee Board members appeared as the public, creati…
Can I force DelDOT to produce small cell permits I think exist when DelDOT swears under oath there are none?
No. DelDOT's Utility Engineer signed an affidavit saying he personally reviewed the records, the database, and the requester's photographic evidence and could find no responsive records of unpermitted…
If a Delaware city blows the 15-day FOIA deadline but eventually answers, can the AG still find a violation, or does the late response moot the petition?
The AG declared the petition moot. Wilmington had told Mr. Bittle within 15 business days that it needed more time, but it failed to give one of the statutory reasons (voluminous records, legal advice…
Can a Tesla customer FOIA the Delaware DOT for every record mentioning Tesla while Tesla itself is suing DOT over a denied dealership license?
No. Alan McKersie filed a FOIA request matching language a Tesla consultant had already FOIA'd and Tesla's counsel had already sought in discovery, and the request's metadata showed the consultant as …
Does a Delaware FOIA coordinator's typo on a response email count as a FOIA violation?
No. The AG concluded Christina School District did not violate FOIA when its coordinator mistakenly addressed the response email to herself within the 15-day window, then promptly corrected the error …
Can a Delaware citizen FOIA an entire county's worth of ballots and voting equipment after a general election?
No. The AG ruled the Delaware Department of Elections properly denied a sweeping request for ballots, voting machine data, and poll books from the 2020 New Castle County general election. The over-380…
If a journalist is investigating how a Delaware city's tow contractor handles impounded cars, can the city deny her FOIA request because a federal civil rights lawsuit on the same topic was filed yesterday?
Yes. Amanda Fries of The News Journal asked Wilmington for impound and sale records covering 2016-2021. The day before her requests, the City was served with a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging th…
Can a Delaware nonprofit petition the AG over a FOIA denial when the underlying records request was filed by a board member personally and never mentioned the organization?
No. Under Delaware FOIA, the party denied access is the sole party with standing to challenge a denial. Smith filed the original FOIA individually, with no mention of Coastal Stewards Delaware (CSD); …
What information does a Delaware FOIA coordinator have to record about every FOIA request the agency receives?
Yes, a violation. The AG ruled the Delaware Auditor of Accounts (AOA) failed for over three years and across two administrations to maintain FOIA logs containing all the information § 10003(g)(3) requ…
Are emails about a draft government contract still secret if the draft was never shown to a board?
Yes for the draft and any draft language buried in emails. The AG ruled the Diamond State Port Corporation could use the working-draft exception, but only for the proposed contract language and revisi…
Must Delaware DHSS create a new COVID case-count report by school district when historical web data has been destroyed by a vendor?
No. DHSS properly denied a request for weekly COVID case counts by school district from August 2020 to August 2021. The data was previously hosted on a third-party 'My Healthy Community' website opera…
Does Delaware's FOIA open-meeting law cover the House of Representatives Ethics Committee, and can the AG decide a prior-restraint free-speech challenge inside a FOIA complaint?
No to both. 29 Del. C. § 10004(h)(7) expressly excludes legislative ethics committees from FOIA's open-meeting requirements, so the Committee's closed September 10, 2021 meeting did not violate FOIA. …
How long can a Delaware county take to fulfill a FOIA request for emails on a controversial topic?
No violation. The AG ruled New Castle County's repeated time extensions to process 2,158 emails responsive to a councilmember's keyword search complied with FOIA, because each extension fell within th…
Can a Delaware agency charge me $2,374 to have its Director of Community Relations sift through 3,801 emails one-by-one for my FOIA request?
No, not without explaining why a director-level employee was the only person who could do the work. The Department of State quoted $2,374 for the Director to review emails about Gulftainer and the Por…
Can a Delaware school board hold no-confidence and mask-mandate votes under a vague '2021-2022 School Year' agenda heading without separate notice?
The Indian River School District Board of Education violated FOIA. Its August 22, 2021 agenda listed only '2021-2022 School Year (D)' for discussion. Two votes followed: one expressing no confidence i…
Can a port operator's lawyer use FOIA to gather DNREC records about other Delaware companies' permits while the operator's own permit-violation appeal is pending?
DNREC did not violate FOIA. The records request, faxed from a number identified as Elliott Greenleaf (the law firm representing GT USA Wilmington in a pending Environmental Appeals Board appeal of DNR…
Can DNREC keep septic-inspection records secret while it investigates a Lewes manufactured-home community?
Yes. The investigatory files exemption in 29 Del. C. § 10002(o)(3) covers DNREC's septic-inspection records of a Lewes community where DNREC has issued a notice of violation and is pursuing enforcemen…
Can a Washington, DC lawyer working for Tesla file a Delaware FOIA request for DelDOT's records about Tesla's motor vehicle dealer license dispute?
No. Delaware FOIA only guarantees access to citizens of Delaware. The petitioner conceded she was not a Delaware citizen, so DelDOT's denial on that basis was proper. The AG also flagged that the peti…
Can a Delaware town council 'poll' its members by email and phone to decide whether to close for a holiday, instead of voting at a public meeting?
The Town of Georgetown violated FOIA. The Town Manager polled all five council members by email and phone on whether to close for Juneteenth 2021. Three said no, two said yes. The Town Manager then an…
Does an executive-branch advisory council have to follow Delaware open-meetings rules?
Yes. The AG ruled the Governor's Council on Agriculture (created by 29 Del. C. § 8108) and the Delaware Council on Food and Farm Policy (created by the Department Secretary) are both public bodies tha…
Can a Delaware agency stack four separate FOIA exemptions to refuse my request for records about a private developer's traffic study?
Partially. The AG ruled DelDOT violated FOIA by failing to back its attorney-client privilege, work-product, and pending-litigation claims with an affidavit, but the working-draft exemption did shield…
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Attorney general opinions in Delaware are written by the Delaware Attorney General's office in response to questions from state agencies, legislators, and prosecutors. They are not binding like court decisions, but courts and agencies treat them as persuasive guidance on how state law applies. Every opinion above has a plain-English question and short answer, plus a link to the full original text.