February 9, 2012

Ms. Cherl Byles

Assistant City Attorney

City of Fort Worth

1000 Throckmorton Street

Fort Worth, Texas 76102

OR2012-02080

Dear Ms. Byles:

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# 448720 (P.I.R. No. W013933).

The City of Fort Worth (the "city") received a request for a specified incident report. You claim 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. Section 552.101 encompasses the common-law right of privacy, which protects information if it (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). To demonstrate the applicability of common-law privacy, both prongs of this test must be established. Id. at 681-82. The type of information considered intimate or 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. This office has found 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. See Open Records Decision Nos. 440 (1986), 393 (1983), 339 (1982). However, a governmental body is required to withhold an entire report when identifying information is inextricably intertwined with other releasable information or when the requestor knows the identity of the alleged victim. See Open Records Decision Nos. 393 (1983), 339 (1982); see also Open Records Decision No. 440 (1986) (detailed descriptions of serious sexual offenses must be withheld). As you acknowledge, the requestor in this instance is the victim of the alleged sexual assault and therefore has a special right of access to her own information that would otherwise be withheld on the basis of privacy. See Gov't Code § 552.023(b) (governmental body may not deny access to person or person's representative to whom information relates on grounds that information is considered confidential under privacy principles). Accordingly, the city may not withhold any of the submitted information from this requestor under section 552.101 of the Government Code in conjunction with common-law privacy. As you raise no further exceptions, the submitted information must be released. ⁽¹⁾

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,

Tamara H. Holland

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

THH/ag

Ref: ID# 448720

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. Because the requestor has a right of access under section 552.023 of the Government Code to the information being released, if the city receives another request for this information from an individual other than this requestor, the city must again seek a ruling from this office. See Gov't Code §§ 552.023(a), .301, .302.

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