November 14, 2008

Ms. Margo M. Kaiser

Staff Attorney

Texas Workforce Commission

101 East 15^th Street

Austin, Texas 78778-0001

OR2008-15676

Dear Ms. Kaiser:

You ask whether certain information is subject to required public disclosure under the Public Information Act (the "Act"), chapter 552 of the Government Code. Your request was assigned ID# 330325.

The Texas Workforce Commission (the "commission") received a request for information pertaining to individuals who registered for employment service within the last two years and reside in a specified county. You state you will release some information to the requestor, but claim the remaining requested information is excepted from disclosure under section 552.137 of the Government Code. We have considered the exception you claim and reviewed the submitted representative sample of information. ⁽¹⁾

Initially, you note that some of the submitted information, which you have marked, is not responsive to the request for information because the individuals reside outside of the specified county. We have marked additional information that is nonresponsive. The commission need not release nonresponsive information in response to this request, and this ruling will not address that information.

You claim the e-mail addresses you have marked are excepted from public disclosure under section 552.137 of the Government Code. Section 552.137 excepts from disclosure "an e-mail address of a member of the public that is provided for the purpose of communicating electronically with a governmental body" unless the member of the public consents to its release or the e-mail address is of a type specifically excluded by subsection (c). See Gov't Code § 552.137(a)-(c). You state that the e-mail addresses at issue are not the type specifically excluded by section 552.137(c), and that the owners have not affirmatively consented to the release of the e-mail addresses. However, we note that one of the submitted e-mail addresses is a government employee's work e-mail address. Section 552.137 is not applicable to an institutional e-mail address, an Internet website address, or an e-mail address that a governmental entity maintains for one of its officials or employees. Therefore, with the exception of the government employee's work e-mail address, which we have marked for release, the commission must withhold the personal e-mail addresses under section 552.137.

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 file suit in Travis County within 30 calendar days. Id. § 552.324(b). In order to get the full benefit of such a challenge, the governmental body must file suit within 10 calendar days. Id. § 552.353(b)(3). If the governmental body does not file suit over 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, upon receiving this ruling, the governmental body will either release the public records promptly pursuant to section 552.221(a) of the Government Code or file a lawsuit challenging this ruling pursuant to section 552.324 of the Government Code. If the governmental body fails to do one of these things, 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 challenge that decision by suing the governmental body. Id. § 552.321(a); Texas Dep't of Pub. 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 Office of the Attorney General 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. 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,

Christopher D. Sterner

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

CDSA/eeg

Ref: ID# 330325

Enc. Submitted documents

cc: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

c: Mr. Carlo Tamayo

Program Director, New Student Relations

The University of Texas at Brownsville and

Texas Southmost College

80 Fort Brown

Brownsville, Texas 78520

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. 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 Nos. 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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