THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
BELKNAP COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT
DOCKET #: 02-E-129
Christopher J. Krochina
v.
Town of Meredith
FINAL ORDER
The plaintiff filed a Petition for the production of certain public documents under RSA 91-A, the so called Right to Know Law. Pursuant to his Petition the plaintiff did in fact receive several documents from the defendant but were not all inclusive in his mind, nor were they in the proper format. The defendant filed a Motion to Dismiss and the matter was scheduled for a final hearing today.
Both parties appeared for the hearing. The plaintiff appeared pro se and the defendant appeared through counsel who had with her the Town Administrator. The plaintiff's first argument was that the Right to Know law required the Town to provide documents to him with a letter certifying that the documents produced were all of the documents that the Town had on a particular subject matter. The Court has reviewed the law in question and does not note therein a certification requirement. Accordingly, the plaintiff's claim of a violation of the right to know law cannot be based upon the Town's failure to certify the documents submitted to him.
The plaintiff requested certification because he believes in view of past dealings with the Town of Meredith that it might claim in some future litigation that the records [2] supplied to him cannot be introduced in that litigation due to the fact that the records were not certified. That simply is not the law. However, to alleviate the concern of the plaintiff on this issue, the Court finds and rules that any documents that the plaintiff has received from the defendant can be placed in evidence in any future litigation without any certification of either authenticity or completeness. The Court finds that those records would fall under the business records exception of the hearsay rule and thus be admissible in evidence.
The Court notes that with respect to the plaintiff's claim that he has not received all of the records of which he is entitled, the defendant's counsel wrote him a letter dated August 8, 2002 which offered him an opportunity to review all of the construction records from March of 1996 through the present time for the property at issue. The Court therefore orders the defendant to make these records available to the plaintiff at a mutually convenient time so that the plaintiff can review those records. The plaintiff shall have the right to request copies of any of the records that he reviews that he has not already received copies of.
Based upon a review of all the pleadings filed, the Court finds that the defendant has not violated RSA 91-A. Assuming that the Town complies with the within Order, the Court dismisses this litigation. The dismissal of this litigation means that the Motion to Intervene filed by Paul and Elaine Taylor is moot.
SO ORDERED.