January 26, 2009

Ms. YuShan Chang

Assistant City Attorney

City of Houston

P.O. Box 368

Houston, Texas 77001-0368

OR2009-00951

Dear Ms. Chang:

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# 337264.

The City of Houston (the "city") received a request for information pertaining to a specified incident. You claim that the submitted information is excepted from disclosure under section 552.101 of the Government Code. We have considered the exception you claim and reviewed the submitted information.

Section 552.101 of the Government Code excepts from disclosure "information considered to be confidential by law, either constitutional, statutory, or by judicial decision." Gov't Code § 552.101. This exception encompasses information that other statutes make confidential, including chapter 773 of the Health and Safety Code, which pertains to emergency medical service ("EMS") records. Access to EMS records is governed by the provisions of section 773.091 of the Health and Safety Code. See Open Records Decision No. 598 (1991). Section 773.091 provides in part the following:

(b) Records of the identity, evaluation, or treatment of a patient by emergency medical services personnel or by a physician providing medical supervision that are created by the emergency medical services personnel or physician or maintained by an emergency medical services provider are confidential and privileged and may not be disclosed except as provided by this chapter.

. . .

(g) The privilege of confidentiality under this section does not extend to information regarding the presence, nature of injury or illness, age, sex, occupation, and city of residence of a patient who is receiving emergency medical services.

Health & Safety Code § 773.091(b), (g). Upon review, we agree that the submitted documents constitute confidential EMS records. You do not indicate, and the documents do not reflect, that the requestor has a special right of access to these records. Therefore, except for the information subject to section 773.091(g), which is not confidential, the city must withhold the submitted EMS report under section 552.101 of the Government Code in conjunction with section 773.091(b) of the Health and Safety Code.

This letter ruling is limited to the particular information 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 information or any other circumstances.

This ruling triggers important deadlines regarding the rights and responsibilities of the governmental body and of the requestor. For more information concerning those rights and responsibilities, please visit our website at http://www.oag.state.tx.us/open/index_orl.php, or call the Office of the Attorney General's Open Government Hotline, toll free, at (877) 673-6839. Questions concerning the allowable charges for providing public information under the Act must be directed to the Cost Rules Administrator of the Office of the Attorney General at (512) 475-2497.

Sincerely,

Reg Hargrove

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

RJH/eeg

Ref: ID# 337264

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

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