NORTH BERGEN -- A judge has ruled that the township cannot recover legal fees from two men who unsuccessfully sued the municipality earlier this year over a public records request.

Hudson County Superior Court Judge Maureen Mantineo dismissed on Friday the township's lawsuit against Luis Gutierrez and Mario Blanch, ruling the lawsuit they filed in March over what they characterized as excessive fees to obtain copies of several hundred public documents was not frivolous.

Since the lawsuit wasn't frivolous, the township is not entitled to the money it spent on lawyers to answer the claim, Mantineo ruled.

"We disagree with the decision," township spokesman Phil Swibinski said. "Taxpayers shouldn't be responsible to pay for these politically motivated requests."

Gutierrez and Blanch, both members of the North Bergen Concerned Citizens Group, filed a lawsuit against the township in March after they filed 51 Open Public Records Act requests for 175 documents.

Township officials notified them in April that the cost of coming up with the documents, a number of which would have had to be reviewed by attorneys, would be at least $42,000.

"We have to pay for man hours and legal fees to go through all of those documents," Swibinski said. "We have to pay attorneys to go through some of them, because an attorney legally has to be the one to go through it. These requests were done to create chaos in the township."

Mantineo dismissed the lawsuit filed by Blanch and Gutierrez in June. In that lawsuit, the men argued that the fee was aimed at keeping them from obtaining public documents