Did Judge Andrew Schulman Really Miss All of This?

The Newmarket litigation raises a deeply uncomfortable question for anyone who still believes courts exist to safeguard constitutional rights and ensure honest government:

How could an experienced, highly educated judge — one fully trained in constitutional law, civil procedure, municipal authority, and public accountability — overlook so many glaring legal and factual problems in a single case?

The question becomes even more difficult when one considers that Andrew Schulman is no ordinary jurist. This is not a novice unfamiliar with constitutional principles or summary judgment standards. This is a judge whose education and experience should have made the legal defects and dangers in the Newmarket case impossible to ignore.

And yet, somehow, nearly every warning sign was brushed aside.

Consider the staggering number of issues the court either minimized, ignored, or failed to meaningfully confront:

• A municipality allegedly entering into an agreement restricting future rights under RSA 91-A.
• No clearly identified statutory or constitutional authority permitting such an agreement.
• Serious implications under the New Hampshire Constitution and public purpose doctrine.
• Existing New Hampshire precedent emphasizing that Right-to-Know protections serve the public interest and cannot simply be bargained away for convenience.
• Questions regarding whether Town officials improperly deliberated or approved matters outside lawful public processes.
• Repeated claims of “consultation with legal counsel” despite evidence allegedly suggesting discussions and approvals extended far beyond narrow legal consultation.
• Allegations involving withheld communications and incomplete disclosures.
• Genuine disputes of material fact existing alongside summary judgment rulings.
• A pro se litigant repeatedly requesting identification of legal authority and receiving none.
• Extraordinary attorney’s fees and sanctions pursued against the citizen challenging governmental conduct.
• Sworn affidavits and representations allegedly contradicted by transcripts and surrounding evidence.
• The enormous chilling effect such a ruling could have on every New Hampshire citizen seeking government transparency.

Any one of those issues should have triggered heightened judicial scrutiny.

Together, they should have set off alarms throughout the courtroom.

Instead, the case increasingly appeared to move in only one direction: protecting the municipality, validating the agreement, and punishing the citizen who challenged it.

That is what makes the situation so troubling.

This was not a case involving obscure procedural technicalities or complicated commercial disputes buried beneath thousands of pages of technical evidence. The central question was straightforward:

What legal authority allowed a municipality to pay a citizen to give up future Right-to-Know rights?

That question deserved a direct answer.

Instead, the proceedings allegedly became consumed by procedural maneuvering, sanctions requests, attorney’s fees, and character attacks against the very person demanding constitutional accountability.

One of the most alarming aspects of the case is the summary judgment issue itself. Courts are not supposed to grant summary judgment where genuine issues of material fact exist. Yet substantial factual disputes allegedly remained unresolved regarding how the agreement was discussed, approved, characterized, and enforced.

An experienced jurist would know that.

An experienced jurist would also understand the dangers of allowing public bodies to evade transparency obligations through semantic games involving “consultation with legal counsel.” Consultation with counsel does not magically convert governmental deliberations into privileged secrecy.

Nor does it authorize public officials to bypass RSA 91-A.

The appearance created by this case is devastating: that constitutional concerns, statutory limitations, disputed facts, and warnings about dangerous precedent all became secondary to achieving a predetermined outcome.

That perception alone damages public confidence in the judiciary.

Perhaps most disturbing of all is the broader precedent such rulings invite. If municipalities can purchase waivers of future transparency rights, conceal deliberative conduct behind attorney consultations, and aggressively punish those who challenge them, then the practical protections of RSA 91-A become dangerously hollow.

Surely a judge with extensive legal training understood those implications.

Which leaves the public with two deeply troubling possibilities:

Either the problems were somehow overlooked despite being repeatedly raised throughout the litigation —

or they were recognized and disregarded.

Neither possibility inspires confidence in equal justice under law.

The Newmarket case should concern every New Hampshire citizen because it poses a fundamental question:

When courts stop demanding clear legal authority from government officials and their attorneys, who exactly is left protecting the public?