Nassau Police Ordered to Pay $34,690.50 in FOIL Fees: What Meyer Means After a Crash

On September 30, 2026, the Appellate Division, Second Department, decided Matter of Meyer v Nassau County Police Dept., 2026 NY Slip Op 05537. The petitioners had sued the Nassau County Police Department to get records under the Freedom of Information Law, won, and asked for $38,493 in attorneys’ fees. Supreme Court, Nassau County, awarded $12,000 and did not say why. The Second Department raised the award to $34,690.50.

The decision is about fees, and it reaches anyone on Long Island who needs records from a county agency. Take a Levittown woman whose car was struck at an intersection on Hempstead Turnpike. Her police accident report is the first document she asks for. If she asks the department for more under FOIL and is refused without a reason the law accepts, Meyer shows how the fee statute works.

What happened in Meyer

The case started in November 2023. The petitioners, Howard Jay Meyer and others, represented by Aron Law, PLLC of Brooklyn, brought a CPLR article 78 proceeding against the Police Department “to compel the production of certain records” under FOIL and for attorneys’ fees and litigation costs. The opinion does not say what records they asked for.

In a judgment entered March 14, 2024, Supreme Court found that the petitioners “substantially prevailed” and that the Police Department had no reasonable basis to deny access to certain records. The court directed the department to “promptly” produce them and held that fees would be awarded “in an amount to be determined.”

Production did not come promptly. More than two months later, the petitioners moved to hold the department in contempt. A few weeks after that motion, the department produced redacted versions of the records, and the petitioners wrote to the court challenging the redactions. They then filed an amended fee affirmation seeking $38,493. The department filed no opposition.

On August 5, 2024, Supreme Court awarded $12,000, and a money judgment for that sum was entered on August 28, 2024. The petitioners appealed. The appeal was about the amount, because the Police Department “does not dispute that the petitioners were entitled to an award of attorneys’ fees under the statute.”

What the FOIL fee statute says

The fee provision is Public Officers Law § 89(4)(c). Its first branch is permissive (“may assess”) and turns on an agency that missed the statutory time to answer; its second is mandatory (“shall assess”) and turns on a denial with no reasonable basis.

The Second Department put the mandatory branch in one sentence: “A court shall award attorneys’ fees to a litigant who has ‘substantially prevailed’ in a FOIL case where the court also determines that ‘the agency had no reasonable basis for denying access’ to the records sought,” citing Matter of Madeiros v New York State Educ. Dept., 30 NY3d 67, 78-79.

Both branches require that the requester “substantially prevailed” in the court proceeding, and both limit the award to “reasonable” fees, which is where Meyer was fought. Here, the agency’s own conduct decides which branch is in play. Consequently, the agency’s written answer, or the date by which none came, is evidence to keep from day one.

How the court did the fee math

The petitioners carried the burden. Quoting Neeman v Smith, 227 AD3d 818, 821, the court said “The attorney [seeking an award of attorneys’ fees] bears the burden of establishing the reasonable value of the services rendered, based upon a showing of the hours reasonably expended and the prevailing hourly rate for similar legal work in the community.” The petitioners met it with an amended affirmation and “an itemized bill of attorney hours expended”: 65.8 hours at $585 an hour.

The Second Department did not send the case back for a new number. It found that Supreme Court “improvidently exercised its discretion in reducing the amount of attorneys’ fees sought to only $12,000” and that “The court failed to explain how it determined the amount of this fee award.” Then, “upon our independent assessment of the record,” it set the figure itself. The card below has every number in the decision.

Two features of that math carry beyond this case. Time spent forcing compliance after the March 2024 judgment, the contempt motion and the redaction challenge, counted as time spent prosecuting the FOIL claim. The time spent chasing the fee itself did not. A requester’s lawyer who keeps an itemized record, task by task, is the one who can prove which hours belong in which column.

Using FOIL after a crash on Long Island

FOIL reaches the Nassau County Police Department. Public Officers Law § 86(3) defines “agency” to include “any state or municipal department, board, bureau, division, commission, committee, public authority, public corporation, council, office or other governmental entity,” and § 87(2) directs each agency to make its records available “except those records or portions thereof that may be withheld” under the listed exemptions.

The five-day clock below runs from “the receipt of a written request for a record reasonably described,” so the request goes in writing and names the records as precisely as the requester can. Agencies with “reasonable means available” must accept requests by e-mail. Unless another statute sets a different fee, paper copies cost no more than “twenty-five cents per photocopy not in excess of nine inches by fourteen inches,” and for other records “no fee shall be charged unless at least two hours of agency employee time is needed to prepare a copy of the record requested.”

After that, the clock in the chart controls. Every row is from Public Officers Law § 89.

For the woman from Levittown, the chart turns into a calendar. She sends a written request that names the date, the time and the intersection on Hempstead Turnpike, and she keeps a copy with the date it went out. If five business days pass with no answer, that silence is a denial she can appeal; if a written denial arrives, she has thirty days to appeal it. Consequently, the dates on her own papers are what later decide which branch of the fee statute is open to her.

FOIL also does not close when a lawsuit opens. Public Officers Law § 89(10) provides that nothing in the article limits “a person or entity that is a party to any civil or criminal action or proceeding from gaining access to records pursuant to this article relating to such action or proceeding,” while still allowing “denial of access to such records or portions thereof after providing particularized and specific justification.” Section 89(6) runs the other way: a FOIL denial “shall not limit or abridge any party’s right of access to such records pursuant to the civil practice law and rules.” A FOIL request before suit and discovery and evidence demands after it are two separate routes to the same file.

What not to expect

FOIL does not promise release. Section 87(2) lists the grounds on which an agency “may deny access to records or portions thereof,” and several of them reach a police file. Records “compiled for law enforcement purposes” may be withheld to the extent disclosure would “interfere with law enforcement investigations or judicial proceedings,” would “deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or impartial adjudication,” or would identify a confidential source. Records whose disclosure “would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” may also be withheld, and the statute’s list of such invasions includes “items involving the medical or personal records of a client or patient in a medical facility.” Nor must an agency “prepare any record not possessed or maintained by such entity.”

What the statute does require is a reason. A denial “shall not be based solely on the category or type of such record and shall be valid only when there is a particularized and specific justification for such denial.” On September 16, 2026, in Matter of Newsday, LLC v County of Nassau, 2026 NY Slip Op 05310, the Second Department held that the county’s sworn submissions did not carry that burden for cybersecurity contracts and for the County Executive’s past public calendars. It did not order the records released outright. It sent both requests back for an in camera inspection by Supreme Court, and it held that Newsday’s fee request was “premature.”

Fees are not automatic either, and not every reduction is reversed. On March 18, 2026, in Matter of Lane v County of Nassau, 2026 NY Slip Op 01515, the Second Department held that the petitioner was entitled to fees because he “substantially prevailed” and the respondents “had no reasonable basis for denying access to the records in their entirety.” The petitioner had sought $61,575. Supreme Court, Nassau County, awarded $17,292.50, and the Second Department held that the court “providently exercised its discretion” in limiting the award to that sum.

Together, the three decisions mark the edges. In Lane a reduced award stood as a provident exercise of discretion. In Meyer a reduction with no explanation, against itemized and unopposed proof, did not. In Newsday the fee request was premature while the records question was still open. The requester who wants fees has to win access first and then prove every hour.

What this office is doing with FOIL

This office filed FOIL requests with Nassau County, addressed to the Clerk of the Legislature and the County Attorney, on September 28, 2026, for settlement records; the Nassau County settlements study explains what the county’s published calendars leave out.

For a crash victim the order of operations starts with the deadlines, not the records. Where a town, a county or a county vehicle is part of the case, General Municipal Law § 50-e requires the notice of claim “within ninety days after the claim arises,” and § 50-i requires the lawsuit “within one year and ninety days after the happening of the event upon which the claim is based.” A FOIL request stops neither clock. File the notice of claim, then the lawsuit, and get the records in discovery; the claim against the municipality page covers its requirements. FOIL before suit earns its place in a narrower set of cases: when the question is whether there is a case at all, such as prior incidents at the same location in a premises case or a pattern behind a claim against a municipality.

Jason Tenenbaum on how he uses FOIL:

Me personally I would just serve a discovery demand because generally with a discovery demand you’re going to get more than you are with a FOIL request and I do understand the logic of doing a FOIL first when you want to find out about prior incidents, right, in a premises case, or a claim against a municipality, it’s nice to know if you have a case before you file. But don’t wait for your FOIL because sometimes they’re not going to respond, and then you appeal, and then you end up in an article 78, and now you’re litigating two cases. So I always say file the notice of claim. You can never go wrong filing a notice of claim. You can go wrong by blowing it.

What to bring to the first call

A FOIL fight is won on paper. Bring what you have of these:

• The date, time and exact location of the crash, and the police report number.
• A copy of each FOIL request you sent, with the date it went out and the agency it went to.
• Every answer from the agency: the acknowledgement, the denial, the appeal decision, or a note of the date by which nothing came back.
• Any records already released, including the redacted pages.
• Your medical discharge papers.

Before you call

When the woman from Levittown calls, her police report number, her FOIL request with its mailing date and the department’s answer are on the desk. If that answer was a denial with no particularized reason, Meyer shows what the statute does when a court agrees. If the crash also involved a county road or vehicle, that claim has its own requirements; our Long Island car accident page covers the rest of the claim.

If you were hurt in a crash on Long Island and a county agency is sitting on the records, call (516) 750-0595 or request a free case review with your FOIL request and the agency’s answer in hand.

Sources

• Matter of Meyer v Nassau County Police Dept., 2026 NY Slip Op 05537 (2d Dept Sept. 30, 2026): nycourts.gov reporter
• Matter of Newsday, LLC v County of Nassau, 2026 NY Slip Op 05310 (2d Dept Sept. 16, 2026): nycourts.gov reporter
• Matter of Lane v County of Nassau, 2026 NY Slip Op 01515 (2d Dept Mar. 18, 2026): nycourts.gov reporter
• Public Officers Law § 86, § 87, § 89
• General Municipal Law § 50-e and § 50-i
• CPLR 217