![]() ATTORNEY GENERAL OF TEXAS GREG ABBOTT | |
February 10, 2010 Ms. Teresa A. Special Assistant City Attorney City of San Angelo P.O. Box 1751 San Angelo, TX 76902 OR2010-02080 Dear Ms. Special: 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# 370120. The San Angelo Police Department (the "department") received a request for an incident report for a specified incident. You claim that portions of the submitted information are 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 common-law privacy for portions of the submitted information, which you have marked. Common-law privacy protects information that is highly intimate or embarrassing, such that its release would be highly objectionable to a person of ordinary sensibilities, and of no legitimate public interest. See Indus. Found. v. Tex. Indus. Accident Bd., 540 S.W.2d 668, 685 (Tex. 1976). Common-law privacy encompasses the specific types of information that are held to be intimate or embarrassing in Industrial Foundation. See id. at 683 (information relating to sexual assault, pregnancy, mental or physical abuse in workplace, illegitimate children, psychiatric treatment of mental disorders, attempted suicide, and injuries to sexual organs). This office has determined that other types of information also are private under section 552.101. See generally Open Records Decision No. 659 at 4-5 (1999) (summarizing information attorney general has held to be private). However, upon review of the submitted information, we find that no portion of the submitted information is highly intimate or embarrassing information of no public concern. Therefore, the department may not withhold any portion of the submitted information under section 552.101. As you raise no further exceptions to disclosure, the entire incident report must be released to the requestor. 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, toll free at (888) 672-6787. Sincerely, Kate Hartfield Assistant Attorney General Open Records Division KH/dls Ref: ID# 370120 Enc. Submitted documents c: Requestor (w/o enclosures)
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