North Dakota Attorney General Opinions
Free plain-English summaries of attorney general opinions issued in North Dakota, with full citations and the original source on every page.
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If I ask a North Dakota county for records and the records are actually held by a separate housing authority that the county appoints board members for, does the county have to track down those records for me?
No. North Dakota's open records law only requires a public entity to provide records that it actually possesses or has custody of. A housing authority is a separate public entity under N.D.C.C. § 23-1…
Did a North Dakota rural ambulance district violate the open meetings or open records laws when its email notice to the official newspaper got stuck in an outbox, and when it took 80 days to release a severance agreement?
Mostly no on the meeting notice (the email failure was a technical glitch and the AG found substantial compliance for both meetings), but yes on the records side. The 80-day delay in releasing a sever…
Can a North Dakota state's attorney refuse to release records of a child-sexual-abuse investigation to the convicted defendant, and how long can the office take to respond?
Yes on the substance: state's attorneys can withhold records that fall within the active-criminal-investigation exemption, juvenile-records confidentiality, child-abuse-report confidentiality, and chi…
If a North Dakota airport authority misspells the email when notifying the city auditor of a special meeting, has it given valid notice?
No. Posting a notice at both terminals on the day of the meeting was not enough. A typo that prevented the city auditor from receiving the notice, plus failure to alert the official newspaper, was not…
If a city's online complaint form silently routes my records request to the wrong inbox, is that my fault or the city's?
It is the city's. Mandan took two months to answer a request submitted through its 'Report a Concern' form because the request was misrouted and apparently deleted. The AG ruled the delay was unreason…
If a North Dakota township posts its meeting notice in the newspaper and on its website but not at the meeting site, is the meeting still validly noticed?
Yes. Substantial compliance is enough. Posting in the newspaper and on the website covered the requirement, even though no notice was posted at the school where the meeting was held. But the same town…
How long can a North Dakota township take to respond to an open records request before the delay becomes a violation?
Reasonable response is usually measured in hours or days, not weeks. A six-week delay was unreasonable, even when the township blamed the unexpected resignation of the treasurer who managed its email …
Is a county historical society subject to North Dakota open meetings law, and what counts as proper meeting minutes?
Yes, the Emmons County Historical Society is a public entity because it receives Emmons County funding and is recognized under N.D.C.C. § 11-11-53. The president's 'personal notes' from three monthly …
Does a North Dakota county board violate the open records law just by overlooking a records request and never responding?
Yes. The Morton County Board of Equalization violated the open records law when it failed to respond at all to a 2022 request for the Board's annual meeting publication notices. 'It got overlooked' is…
If a North Dakota public agency does not have a record I asked for, does it have to tell me, or can it just stay silent?
The Morton County Sheriff's Office did not violate the open records law by not producing a record that did not exist, but it did violate the law by not telling the requester that the record did not ex…
Is it OK to wait six weeks to give a citizen meeting minutes after she requested them, and did the special meeting itself get proper notice?
The November 1, 2021 special meeting was properly noticed (email to newspaper plus website). But waiting over a month to provide requested meeting minutes was an unreasonable delay and violated the op…
How long can a North Dakota county take to respond to an open records request before the delay itself is a violation?
Even a correct denial does not save you if you waited too long to respond. Stark County's eleven-day silence before any acknowledgement, attributed to staff turnover and an election, was an unreasonab…
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Attorney general opinions in North Dakota are written by the North Dakota 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.