CT Supreme Court to review vexatious requester law

The Connecticut Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the constitutionality of the state’s vexatious requester law. The court recently agreed to hear an appeal from Matthew Olson, who was labelled a vexatious requester in 2022, which argues the statute is so vague it infringes on free speech rights protected by Connecticut’s constitution.

Olson has brought a series of appeals following the Freedom of Information Commission’s (FOIC) 2022 decision finding that he was a vexatious requester. After a 2019 interaction with a Stamford Police Department officer over a vehicle that was parked on the street near his house, which Olson argues was racially motivated, Olson filed a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests he states were intended to discover who had called the police. Other requests, and accompanying communication, also compared how police had handled that incident to their investigation of an assault on his son.

Olson sent a series of over 30 emails and FOIA requests not only to Stamford PD, but also to the city’s legal departments. Many of the requests also contained language accusing the police of disparate racial treatment and harassment, which continued in interactions with the FOIC’s staff while Stamford’s vexatious requester petition was being adjudicated.

In their decision, the FOIC found Olson used the FOIA process to badger town officials, including by filing multiple, voluminous requests when he was not satisfied with town officials’ responses and inundating town officials with emails that contained abusive language.

Under the state’s vexatious requester statute, the commission may grant a petition to label an individual a vexatious requester allowing officials to not respond to their requests for up to a year if they demonstrate a pattern of conduct that abuses the right to access information under FOIA. The law stipulates that such behavior may include filing a large number of requests, very large and complicated requests, and the nature of communications with public officials related to the requests.

In some of his arguments before the commission, Olson claimed his communications with Stamford officials were constitutionally protected speech and that labeling his behavior as vexatious violated that right. The FOIC rejected that claim, finding Olson had no liberty or property interests that had been violated because abuse is not a constitutionally protected right.

Olson raised a similar argument in appeals he later filed seeking to have the FOIC’s decision overturned. In his appeal to the Superior Court, Olson argued the FOIC created a vague and arbitrary definition of a vexatious requester, that the term “vexatious requester” is unconstitutionally vague, and that the vexatious requester statute constitutes unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.

In its first ruling on a vexatious requester petition, the FOIC adopted the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of “vexatious.” Olson’s first claim argued they did not have the authority to do so and should have looked at common law.

The Superior Court rejected Olson’s arguments, finding there was “substantial evidence” behind its ruling and that, in the absence of specific definitions in statutory language, the FOIC was within its authority to look to plain English meanings.

The court also found the language in the vexatious requester statute, which lists considerations the commission may make when considering a petition, provided a reasonable person with an understanding of what behavior might be labelled vexatious. They did not review Olson’s claim about unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination because it was not adequately briefed.

In April 2026 the state appellate court issued a decision affirming the Superior Court’s ruling, finding that their decision properly found the FOIC had not misinterpreted the meaning of “vexatious requester” and that the term is not unconstitutionally vague. They also found the Superior Court was correct to decline to review Olson’s claim about viewpoint discrimination.

Olson again appealed that decision and in late September, the Supreme Court has granted a petition from Olson’s legal team to review the appellate court decision.

According to the order from the state’s highest court, the appeal is limited to several issues, including whether the Appellate Court properly upheld the Superior Court’s ruling that the term “vexatious requester” is not unconstitutionally vague as applied to Olson and that the Appellate Court improperly declined to review Olson’s allegation that the vexatious requester statute amounts to viewpoint discrimination.