March 12, 2009

Ms. Susan Camp-Lee

Sheets & Crossfield, P.C.

Attorney for City of Elgin

309 East Main Street

Round Rock, Texas 78664-5246

OR2009-03302

Dear Ms. Camp-Lee:

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# 337654.

The City of Elgin (the "city"), which you represent, received a request for all complaints filed against the city's police officers, management, or the city as a whole in the past five years. You state you have released all of the responsive information to the requestor, with the exception of one complaint, which you have submitted for our review. 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 public disclosure "information considered to be confidential by law, either constitutional, statutory, or by judicial decision." Gov't Code § 552.101. Section 552.101 of the Government Code encompasses the doctrine of common-law privacy, which excepts from public disclosure private information about an individual if the information (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. Indus. Found. v. Tex. Indus. Accident Bd., 540 S.W.2d 668, 685 (Tex. 1976). The types of information considered intimate and embarrassing by the Texas Supreme Court in Industrial Foundation included 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. In Open Records Decision No. 393 (1983), this office concluded that information that either identifies or tends to identify a victim of sexual assault or other sex-related offense must be withheld under common-law privacy. Open Records Decision No. 393 at 2 (1983); see also Open Records Decision No. 339 (1982); Morales v. Ellen, 840 S.W.2d 519 (Tex. App.--El Paso 1992, writ denied) (identity of witnesses to and victims of sexual harassment was highly intimate or embarrassing information and public did not have a legitimate interest in such information). We have marked the information in the submitted report that is protected by common-law privacy. The city must withhold this information pursuant to section 552.101 of the Government Code in conjunction with common-law privacy. The remaining information must be released.

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,

Ana Carolina Vieira

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

ACV/eb

Ref: ID# 337654

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

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