With the Exception of Residence Addresses Included in the Requested Documents, Respondent Fire Department Did Not Meet Its Burden of Demonstrating the Applicability of a Statutory Exemption to Disclosure

The Second Department determined the respondent fire department did not demonstrate why any information other than the residence addresses should be redacted from the requested documents. Providing the residence addresses would constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy. Conclusory assertions by the fire department were not otherwise sufficient to meet the department’s burden for demonstrating the applicability of a statutory exemption from disclosure:

Under FOIL, government records are “presumptively open” for public inspection and copying, unless they fall within an enumerated statutory exemption of Public Officers Law § 87(2) … . The exemptions are to be “narrowly construed” so as to ensure maximum public access …, and the burden rests on the agency to demonstrate that the requested material in fact qualifies for exemption (see Public Officers Law § 89[4][b]…). To meet that burden, the agency must “articulate particularized and specific justification” for the nondisclosure at issue … .

Here, the Fire Department failed to articulate a particularized and specific justification for any of the redacted information at issue, except for the residence addresses contained in the subject documents. The Fire Department’s conclusory assertions that the redacted information, other than residence addresses, fell within a statutory exemption were insufficient to meet its burden of demonstrating that the requested information was exempt from disclosure … . Matter of Villalobos v New York City Fire Dept., 2015 NY Slip Op 06249, 2nd Dept 7-22-15