February 21, 2012

Ms. Neera Chatterjee

Office of General Counsel

University of Texas System

201 West Seventh Street

Austin, Texas 78701-2902

OR2012-02666

Dear Ms. Chatterjee:

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# 448054 (ORR# 141418).

The University of Texas at El Paso ("UTEP") received a request for documentation identifying a UTEP employee who has a specified parking permit, and information demonstrating if this employee was working at UTEP on Oct 3, 2011. You state UTEP does not have information demonstrating if this employee was working at UTEP on Oct 3, 2011. ⁽¹⁾ You claim 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 disclosure "information considered to be confidential by law, either constitutional, statutory, or by judicial decision." 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, 685 (Tex. 1976). The types 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 some kinds of medical information or information indicating disabilities or specific illnesses are excepted from required public disclosure under common-law privacy. E.g., see Open Records Decision Nos. 470 (1987) (illness from severe emotional and job-related stress), 455 (1987) (prescription drugs, illnesses, operations, and physical handicaps).

You inform us the parking permit at issue is reserved for handicapped individuals. Thus, you argue release of the requested identity of the individual to whom the permit was issued would reveal the individual is disabled. Based on your representations and our review of the submitted documents, we find the requested information to be highly intimate and embarrassing and not of legitimate concern to the public. Cf. Trans. Code § 681.003(d) (making confidential name and address of person to whom disabled parking placard is issued by Texas Department of Motor Vehicles). Therefore, we agree UTEP must withhold the requested identifying information of the individual to whom the parking permit was issued 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, toll free, at (888) 672-6787.

Sincerely,

James L. Coggeshall

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

JLC/ag

Ref: ID# 448054

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. The Act does not require a governmental body to disclose information that did not exist when the request for information was received. Econ. Opportunities Dev. Corp. v. Bustamante, 562 S.W.2d 266 (Tex. App.--San Antonio 1978, writ dism'd); Open Records Decision No. 452 at 3 (1986).

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