November 4, 2010

Lt. William Edmundson

Record Division

Pharr Police Department

1900 South Cage

Pharr, Texas 78577-6751

OR2010-16752

Dear Lieutenant Edmundson:

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# 399455.

The Pharr Police Department (the "department") received a request for an incident report involving a specified address on a specified date. You claim the submitted information is excepted from disclosure under section 552.101 of the Government Code. ⁽¹⁾ 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. This section encompasses 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. Indus. Found. v. Tex. Indus. Accident Bd., 540 S.W.2d 668, 683-85 (Tex. 1976). To demonstrate the applicability of common-law privacy, both prongs of this test must be met. Id. at 681-82. Common-law privacy protects the types of information considered intimate and embarrassing by the Texas Supreme Court in Industrial Foundation, including 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. See id. at 683. This office has found that medical information or information indicating disabilities or specific illnesses is excepted from required public disclosure under common-law privacy. See Open Records Decision Nos. 470 (1987) (illness from severe emotional and job-related stress), 455 (1987) (prescription drugs, illnesses, operations, and physical handicaps). Generally, only highly intimate information that implicates the privacy of an individual is withheld. However, in certain instances, where it is demonstrated 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. Although you seek to withhold the submitted information in its entirety, you have not demonstrated, nor does it otherwise appear, this is a situation where the entirety of the information must be withheld on the basis of common-law privacy. Accordingly, the submitted information may not be withheld in its entirety under common-law privacy. However, we agree the submitted information contains information that is highly intimate or embarrassing and not of legitimate public interest. Accordingly, the department must withhold the information we marked under section 552.101 in conjunction with common-law privacy. As you raise no other exceptions against disclosure of the remaining information, it 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, toll free, at (888) 672-6787.

Sincerely,

Ana Carolina Vieira

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

ACV/eeg

Ref: ID# 399455

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. Although you also raise section 552.108 of the Government Code as an exception to disclosure of the submitted information, you provide no arguments regarding the applicability of this section. We, therefore, assume you no longer assert section 552.108. See Gov't Code §§ 552.301(b), (e), .302.

POST OFFICE BOX 12548, AUSTIN, TEXAS 78711-2548 TEL: (512) 463-2100 WEB: WWW.OAG.STATE.TX.US
An Equal Employment Opportunity Employer