August 15, 2002

Mr. Craig H. Smith
Director of Legal Services
Texas Workers' Compensation Commission
4000 South IH-35, MS-4D
Austin, Texas 78704-7491

OR2002-4507

Dear Mr. Smith:

You ask whether certain information is subject to required public disclosure under chapter 552 of the Government Code. Your request was assigned ID# 167116.

The Texas Workers' Compensation Commission (the "commission") received a written request for "the Trial Court Cause Number on the Petitions, filed by the injuried [sic] workers for judicial review of the appeals panel decision, for the years of 1993, 1997, and 1998." It appears that the requestor also seeks the name of the claimant and the identity of the court in which the appeal was filed. You have submitted to this office as responsive to the request a representative sample of responsive information contained in the commission's database, which you contend is made confidential under section 402.083 of the Labor Code and thus must be withheld from the public pursuant to section 552.101 of the Government Code.

Section 552.101 of the Government Code excepts from disclosure "information considered to be confidential by law, either constitutional, statutory, or by judicial decision." This section encompasses information made confidential by other statutes. Section 402.083 of the Labor Code provides that "[i]nformation in or derived from a claim file regarding an employee is confidential and may not be disclosed by the commission except as provided by this subtitle." This office has interpreted section 402.083 to protect only that "information in or derived from a claim file that explicitly or implicitly discloses the identities of employees who file workers' compensation claims." Open Records Decision No. 619 at 10 (1993). You admit, however, that the requested cause numbers are "not specifically part of the claim file." Nor can it be said that the requested cause numbers or the court in which the appeal was filed were "derived from" information contained in the respective claim files held by the commission. We therefore conclude that each of the requested cause numbers and the courts hearing those appeals are not made confidential under section 402.083 of the Labor Code. This information must be released to the requestor.

On the other hand, the names of the employee/claimants who filed the appeals constitute claim file information and clearly would reveal the identities of the employees who filed workers' compensation claims. This information is made confidential by section 402.083 of the Labor Code. It does not appear that any of the exceptions to confidentiality listed in sections 402.084 or 402.085 of the Labor Code are applicable here. Accordingly, we conclude that the commission must withhold the claimants' names from the requestor pursuant to section 552.101 of the Government Code.⁽¹⁾

This letter ruling is limited to the particular records at issue in this request and limited to the facts as presented to us; therefore, this ruling must not be relied upon as a previous determination regarding any other records or any other circumstances.

This ruling triggers important deadlines regarding the rights and responsibilities of the governmental body and of the requestor. For example, governmental bodies are prohibited from asking the attorney general to reconsider this ruling. Gov't Code § 552.301(f). If the governmental body wants to challenge this ruling, the governmental body must appeal by filing suit in Travis County within 30 calendar days. Id. § 552.324(b). In order to get the full benefit of such an appeal, the governmental body must file suit within 10 calendar days. Id. § 552.353(b)(3), (c). If the governmental body does not appeal this ruling and the governmental body does not comply with it, then both the requestor and the attorney general have the right to file suit against the governmental body to enforce this ruling. Id. § 552.321(a).

If this ruling requires the governmental body to release all or part of the requested information, the governmental body is responsible for taking the next step. Based on the statute, the attorney general expects that, within 10 calendar days of this ruling, the governmental body will do one of the following three things: 1) release the public records; 2) notify the requestor of the exact day, time, and place that copies of the records will be provided or that the records can be inspected; or 3) notify the requestor of the governmental body's intent to challenge this letter ruling in court. If the governmental body fails to do one of these three things within 10 calendar days of this ruling, then the requestor should report that failure to the attorney general's Open Government Hotline, toll free, at 877/673-6839. The requestor may also file a complaint with the district or county attorney. Id. § 552.3215(e).

If this ruling requires or permits the governmental body to withhold all or some of the requested information, the requestor can appeal that decision by suing the governmental body. Id. § 552.321(a); Texas Department of Public Safety v. Gilbreath, 842 S.W.2d 408,411 (Tex. App.--Austin 1992, no writ).

Please remember that under the Act the release of information triggers certain procedures for costs and charges to the requestor. If records are released in compliance with this ruling, be sure that all charges for the information are at or below the legal amounts. Questions or complaints about over-charging must be directed to Hadassah Schloss at the Texas Building and Procurement Commission at 512/475-2497.

If the governmental body, the requestor, or any other person has questions or comments about this ruling, they may contact our office. We note that a third party may challenge this ruling by filing suit seeking to withhold information from a requestor. Gov't Code § 552.325. Although there is no statutory deadline for contacting us, the attorney general prefers to receive any comments within 10 calendar days of the date of this ruling.

Sincerely,

Karen A. Eckerle
Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Division
KAE/RWP/sdk
Ref: ID# 167116
Enc: Submitted documents

c: Mr. Wilbert L. Lewis, Sr.
c/o Craig H. Smith
Texas Workers' Compensation Commission
4000 South IH-35, MS-4D
Austin, Texas 78704-7491
(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. In reaching our conclusion here, we assume that the "representative sample" of records submitted to this office is truly representative of the requested records as a whole. See Open Records Decision No. 499 (1988), 497 (1988). This open records letter does not reach, and therefore does not authorize the withholding of, any other requested records to the extent that those records contain substantially different types of information than that submitted to this office.
 

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