April 4, 2012

Ms. Krista Cover

Assistant City Attorney

City of San Antonio

P.O. Box 839966

San Antonio, Texas 78283-3966

OR2012-04901

Dear Ms. Cover:

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# 449676 (COSA File No. W005239).

The City of San Antonio (the "city") received a request for all domestic partnership affidavit and agreement forms filed with the city. You state you have released some information to the requestor. You claim some of the submitted information is excepted from disclosure under sections 552.101 and 552.117 of the Government Code. ⁽¹⁾ We have considered the exceptions you claim and reviewed the submitted representative sample of information. ⁽²⁾

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 common-law 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 types of information considered intimate and embarrassing by the Texas Supreme Court in Industrial Foundation include 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. Common-law privacy protects certain personal financial information from disclosure. This office has found a public employee's allocation of part of the employee's salary to a voluntary investment, health, or other program offered by the employer is a personal investment decision that is highly intimate or embarrassing. See Open Records Decision Nos. 600 (1992) (finding personal financial information to include designation of beneficiary of employee's retirement benefits and optional insurance coverage; choice of particular insurance carrier; direct deposit authorization; and forms allowing employee to allocate pretax compensation to group insurance, health care, or dependent care), 545 (1990) (deferred compensation information, participation in voluntary investment program, election of optional insurance coverage, mortgage payments, assets, bills, and credit history). Upon review, we find the submitted information consists of personal financial information that is highly intimate or embarrassing information of no legitimate public concern. Therefore, the city must withhold the submitted information under section 552.101 of the Government Code in conjunction with common-law privacy. ⁽³⁾

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,

Cynthia G. Tynan

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

CGT/em

Ref: ID# 449676

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. Although you raise sections 552.102 and 552.108 of the Government Code, you make no arguments to support these exceptions. Accordingly, we understand the city no longer asserts these exceptions. See Gov't Code § 552.301(e) (governmental body must provide comments stating why exceptions raised should apply to information requested).

2. We assume the "representative sample" of records submitted to this office is truly representative of the requested records as a whole. See Open Records Decision Nos. 499 (1988), 497 (1988). This open records letter does not reach, and therefore does not authorize the withholding of, any other requested records to the extent those records contain substantially different types of information than those submitted to this office.

3. As our ruling is dispositive, we need not address your remaining arguments against disclosure.

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