A conversation on Twitter earlier today caused me to investigate (more accurately, caused me to ask someone in the office to investigate) how many Final Determinations issued by the Office of Open Records have been appealed to court.

OOR decisions involving state agencies can be appealed to Commonwealth Court. According to our figures, that’s happened 604 times since the law went into effect on Jan. 1, 2009.

OOR decisions involving local agencies can be appealed to the county Court of Common Pleas. Our figures indicate that’s happened 519 times.

As of today, the OOR has decided more than 13,000 appeals.

Thus, approximately 8.6 percent (1,123 out of 13,000) of the OOR’s decisions have been appealed to court.

Note: The numbers above are accurate to the best of our knowledge. Under the Right-to-Know Law, the OOR should be notified of any court appeal, but there have been instances where that hasn’t happened.