Legal landscape note: This article was originally published in 2016 and describes the law as it stood at that time. New Jersey law changes frequently.
A common assumption is that, like Pennsylvania, Illinois, and a number of other states, New Jersey gives workers a statutory right to inspect and copy their personnel files on demand. It does not. New Jersey has no general statute that requires a private-sector employer to open its personnel records to a current employee, a former employee, or that employee's attorney simply because the employee asks. After a termination, a New Jersey private employer is generally free to decline a bare request for "my personnel file."
That said, several specific paths can give a New Jersey employee access to records the employer holds about them.
Wage and payroll records
New Jersey's Wage Payment Law treats pay records differently from a general personnel file. Under N.J.S.A. 34:11-4.6, employers must notify employees of their rate of pay and regular payday, furnish a statement of deductions for each pay period, and keep records of hours worked and wages paid. These wage and hour records are a creature of statute, and an employee's request for them stands on far firmer ground than a request for the file as a whole.
Medical information
Employee medical information is governed by a separate and more protective set of rules and is kept apart from the general personnel file. Under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. 12112(d), employers must maintain medical information in separate, confidential files. Access to those records is controlled by that framework, not by any open-ended personnel-file rule.
Public employees and OPRA
The analysis is different for public employees. The Open Public Records Act, N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1 et seq., gives the public a qualified right of access to government records. Personnel and pension records are generally exempt under N.J.S.A. 47:1A-10, but that statute carves out specific information that remains a government record: an individual's name, title, position, salary, payroll record, length of service, date of separation and the reason for it, and the amount and type of any pension received. Public school district records follow the same approach, with N.J.A.C. 6A:32-4.3 directing access through OPRA and N.J.S.A. 18A:6-120 et seq. OPRA does not, however, reach private employers.
Litigation and discovery
The most direct route to an employer's records is often litigation. Once a lawsuit is filed -- for wrongful termination, discrimination under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, unpaid wages, or another claim -- the Rules of Court control. New Jersey Court Rule 4:10-2(a) permits discovery of any matter, not privileged, that is relevant to the subject matter of the action, and information need not be admissible at trial so long as the request is reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence. A document request under Rule 4:18-1, to which the employer must respond within 35 days, can reach applications, performance reviews, write-ups, supervisor notes, and internal communications. Courts apply a balancing test and expect requests to be narrowly tailored to the claims, so this is not an open-ended right to the entire file, but it is the mechanism through which the records behind a termination decision typically come to light.
A note on out-of-state law
Pennsylvania, unlike New Jersey, does have a Personnel Files Act. New Jersey employees should not rely on it. Pennsylvania's statute is also narrower than it may appear: in Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, Inc. v. Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, 162 A.3d 384 (Pa. 2017), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that a discharged worker is not a current "employee" entitled to inspect a personnel file under that Act, reversing a lower court that had allowed access shortly after termination. That decision interprets Pennsylvania law only and does not govern New Jersey employers or employees.