January 27, 2009

Ms. Katie Lentz

Open Records

Williamson County Sheriff's Office

508 South Rock Street

Georgetown, Texas 78626

OR2009-01066

Dear Ms. Lentz:

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# 333280.

The Williamson County Sheriff's Office (the "sheriff") received a request for information pertaining to a specified incident. ⁽¹⁾ You claim that the requested 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. You raise section 552.101 in conjunction with the doctrine of common-law privacy, which protects information that (1) contains highly intimate or embarrassing facts, the publication of which would be highly objectionable to a reasonable person, and (2) is not of legitimate concern to the public. See Indus. Found. v. Tex. Indus. Accident Bd., 540 S.W.2d 668, 685 (Tex. 1976). The types of information considered to be intimate and embarrassing by the Texas Supreme Court in Industrial Foundation include information relating to sexual assault, pregnancy, mental or physical abuse in the workplace, illegitimate children, psychiatric treatment of mental disorders, attempted suicide, and injuries to sexual organs. Id. at 683. Generally, only highly intimate information that implicates the privacy of an individual is withheld. However, in certain instances where it is demonstrated that the requestor knows the identity of the individual involved as well as the nature of certain incidents, the entire report must be withheld to protect the individual's privacy. In this instance, the submitted information reveals that the requestor knows the identity of the individual involved, as well as the nature of the information in the submitted report. Therefore, withholding only the individual's identity or certain details of the incident from the requestor would not preserve the subject individual's common-law right of privacy. Accordingly, to protect the privacy of the individual to whom the information relates, we find that the entire report is generally subject to common-law privacy.

We note, however, that the requestor may be an authorized representative of the individual whose right to privacy is involved. In the event that the requestor is that individual's authorized representative, then she has a special right of access to his private information under section 552.023 of the Government Code. See Gov't Code § 552.023(a). ⁽²⁾ If the requestor has a right of access under section 552.023, then the sheriff may not withhold any of the information in the submitted report on privacy grounds under section 552.101. See Open Records Decision No. 481 at 4 (1987) (privacy theories not implicated when individual requests information concerning himself). If the requestor is not the individual's authorized representative, then the sheriff must withhold the submitted report in its entirety under section 552.101 in conjunction with common-law privacy.

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,

Paige Savoie

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

PS/eeg

Ref: ID# 333280

Enc. Submitted documents

cc: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. We note that the requestor excluded social security numbers and certain Texas motor vehicle record information from her request for information; therefore, this information is not responsive to the request, and the sheriff is not required to release such information in response to this request. See generally Gov't Code § 552.147(b) (governmental body may redact living person's social security number from public release without necessity of requesting decision from this office under the Act).

2. Section 552.023(a) provides that "[a] person or a person's authorized representative has a special right of access, beyond the right of the general public, to information held by a governmental body that relates to the person and that is protected from public disclosure by laws intended to protect that person's privacy interests." Gov't Code § 552.023(a).

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