The Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) is asking the Superior Court of New Britain to dismiss an appeal of a ruling against the Department of Public Health (DPH) because a state marshal did not deliver the appeal to the FOIC.
State agencies have 45 days after another agency issues a final decision to file an appeal in court. Previously, state law allowed appeals to be served to agencies by a variety of methods, including through registered mail. However, a new law that went into effect on October 1, 2025, requires “[s]ervice of the appeal shall be made by a state marshal.”
In a motion filed on January 8, the FOIC is asking the court to dismiss DPH’s appeal against their decision because it was delivered by registered mail and not by a state marshal.
“Because the Plaintiffs failed to serve the appeal on the Commission by a state marshal within 45 days of the [notice of final decision], this Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over this administrative appeal. Accordingly, the Plaintiffs’ appeal must be dismissed.” the FOIC’s motion to dismiss states.
The underlying case involves a five-year-old FOIA request filed by Alec Ferretti, a professional genealogist who works for Reclaim the Records, a not-for-profit working to put vital records in the public domain. In August 2020, Ferretti filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with DPH seeking birth indexes from 1920 to 2020.
DPH denied the request, citing a vital records statute that restricts access to certified copies of birth certificates and fetal death records from within the last 100 years to the individuals who are the subject of those records, if they are over 19, and a list of people with limited eligibility.
But birth indexes, which are essentially of who was born, when, and in what town, are different than birth certificates, as the FOIC has repeatedly ruled. The FOIC reaffirmed that distinction in its ruling in Ferretti’s favor.
DPH appealed the FOIC’s order in court, but their argument focused less on the case’s merits and more on the nearly five years it took for the FOIC to issue a decision.
Ferretti filed his complaint against DPH with the FOIC in February 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic was impacting government functions. As part of executive orders issued in response to the pandemic, Gov. Ned Lamont suspended the one-year period the FOIC has to dispose of complaints it received.
Complaints like Ferretti’s that were pending at the beginning of the pandemic entered a kind of limbo. When Lamont’s pandemic executive orders lifted, so did the suspension of the FOIC’s one-year window to dispose of complaints. And that meant complaints filed after Ferretti’s, which more clearly had to be handled within a shorter period of time, were handled first.
The FOIC did not adopt a specific policy for handling lingering COVID-era complaints like Ferretti’s, which lead multiple agencies the FOIC eventually found violated FOIA to argue the commission no longer had subject matter jurisdiction.
DPH made a similar argument, both before the FOIC as it considered adopting its final decision and in its appeal of that decision in court. DPH’s appeal is focused not on the merits of the ruling, but on the issue of subject matter jurisdiction. DPH argued that once the executive order suspending the one-year period to dispose of complaints expired, the FOIC had one year from that date to issue rulings on any outstanding COVID-era complaints. Because the FOIC didn’t issue its final order until September 2025, DPH argues they had no jurisdiction over the case.
DPH filed its appeal on October 16, 2025. The court issued a stay of the FOIC’s decision ordering DPH to turn records over to Ferretti on December 3, 2025.
But if the court grants the FOIC’s motion to dismiss the appeal on the grounds it was not served by judicial marshal, it will sidestep the jurisdictional arguments at the center of DPH’s appeal.
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