Every practitioner who advises a municipality, a police department, or a governmental agency will eventually face a question with no clear answer: does the Right-to-Know Law require disclosure of this record? On April 15, 2026, the Supreme Court decided Town of Hanover v. Valley News, reversing the trial court and ordering an award of attorney’s fees against the Town of Hanover and its police department under RSA 91-A:8, I. The decision is the latest in a line of cases reshaping the attorney’s fees landscape under the Right-to-Know Law, raising the practical stakes of disclosure decisions.
The Valley News Case
In October 2023, two Dartmouth College students were arrested in Hanover. The Valley News filed a 91-A request for the arrest records. Hanover refused, invoking the Murray exemptions for law enforcement files. Murray allows law enforcement to prevent disclosure when doing so could interfere with enforcement proceedings (exemption A) or deprive a defendant of a fair trial (exemption B). See Murray v. N.H. Div. of State Police, 154 N.H. 579 (2006). The Murray exemptions do not appear in the text of RSA ch. 91-A. They are judicially created, not statutory. The court adopted them from the Freedom of Information Act in Lodge v. Knowlton, 118 N.H. 574 (1978), “in the absence of legislative standards.” Nearly fifty years later, legislative standards have not been adopted.
Hanover filed a declaratory judgment action, seeking court guidance on its decision not to disclose the records. The trial court ordered the records released and initially awarded fees, but on reconsideration reversed the fee award, finding that Hanover had made a good faith effort to navigate a complex and unsettled area of the Right-to-Know Law. The Supreme Court disagreed.
The Fee-Shifting Framework
RSA 91-A:8, I provides that a public body that violates the Right-to-Know Law “shall be liable for reasonable attorney’s fees” if two conditions are met: the lawsuit was necessary to enforce compliance, and the public body “knew or should have known” its conduct violated the statute. Once both prongs are satisfied, the fee award is mandatory. For decades, that standard routinely shielded public bodies when the governing law was unsettled. See, e.g., Goode v. N.H. Legislative Budget Assistant, 145 N.H. 451 (2000) (unsettled area of law; fees denied); Pro. Firefighter of New Hampshire v. HealthTrust, Inc., 151 N.H. 501 (2004) (HealthTrust not clearly covered; fees denied).
Blanket Denial and the “Knew or Should Have Known” Standard
Since 2022, the court has repeatedly held that when a public body refuses to gather and assess responsive records individually and instead issues a blanket denial, that refusal can satisfy the “knew or should have known” standard.
In Colquhoun v. City of Nashua, 175 N.H. 474 (2022), a citizen requested emails between two city employees over a two-month period. The city refused to search, calling the request overbroad and not “reasonably described.” The court disagreed and awarded fees, holding that the city should have known that refusing to conduct a reasonable search violated the statute, even though no prior decision had specifically defined the statutory phrase “reasonably described.”
In Michaud v. Town of Campton Police Dep’t, 176 N.H. 542 (2024), the town denied a records request based on the requestor’s suspected motive—circumventing discovery limits in separate litigation. The court held that motive alone cannot justify a blanket denial without first reviewing responsive records for applicable exemptions. It then vacated the trial court’s denial of fees and remanded for a determination of whether fees should be granted.
In Valley News, Hanover’s blanket denial rested on the Murray exemptions. The court acknowledged that its prior precedents had not addressed Murray exemption (B). But it held that at least some of the withheld records—including Dartmouth College policy documents, the college president’s community message about the arrests, and student position statements—did not implicate any Murray exemption. The court rejected the argument that Hanover’s blanket denial was appropriate because a criminal investigation and prosecution were ongoing. It then reversed and remanded for an award of attorney’s fees and costs.
Three different justifications for blanket denial—burden, motive, and an active criminal prosecution—have each been rejected by the court.
Lessons from Valley News
What makes Valley News striking is what Hanover appears to have done right. It engaged in pre-litigation discussions, sought court guidance through a declaratory judgment action, and the trial court found good faith on behalf of Hanover. But the Supreme Court applied an objective standard, holding that Hanover should have known that at least some of the records were not exempt from disclosure because they were publicly available.
The court’s reasoning raises an important practical question. How should law enforcement evaluate investigatory records that partially overlap with public information? Consider a witness statement that echoes a media account, or a public social media post referenced in an arrest report. The public records referenced in Valley News appear to have been embedded within, or part of, arrest reports. Law enforcement must balance two competing risks: fee liability for withholding records they should have disclosed, and the possibility that disclosure could compromise an ongoing criminal investigation or jeopardize a defendant’s right to a fair trial.
Disclosure May Not End the Exposure
The Valley News court also resolved a procedural question with practical significance. After Hanover released the records, the Valley News moved to reopen and seek fees, arguing it could not evaluate the withholding until it saw the records themselves. The court agreed, finding the motion timely. The ruling signals that requesting parties may seek fees after disclosure if the records reveal the initial withholding was unjustified.
The Broader Compliance Burden
Stepping back from the Valley News decision, 91-A compliance pressures extend well beyond the Murray exemptions. Many exemptions in RSA 91-A:5 demand judicially created balancing tests (e.g., weighing privacy interests or evaluating confidential information) that the public body must do in the first instance. The people doing that work—town clerks, police records staff, municipal administrators—often do so without legal counsel and under a five-business-day statutory deadline. As demonstrated above, the financial consequences of failing to disclose a record that should have been disclosed are significant.
Practical Guidance
The practical takeaways are straightforward. Review each responsive document individually. Separate clearly public material from records that plausibly fall within an exemption. Cite specific statutory exemptions with brief explanations, as the statute requires. Document your reasoning contemporaneously. For requests involving law enforcement records, complex balancing tests, or any unsettled area of law, seek legal counsel early. A consultation on the front end almost certainly costs less than a fee award on the back end.
After Valley News, the message is unmistakable: if a public body withholds all records when some should have been disclosed, fees will follow. The path forward is not less transparency, but more careful, document-by-document analysis, before, not after, the decision to deny.