April 18, 2012

Mr. Gregory A. Alicie

Open Records Spcialist

Baytown Police Department

3200 North Main Street

Baytown, Texas 77521

OR2012-05496

Dear Mr. Alicie:

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# 450977.

The Baytown Police Department (the "department") received a request for a specified incident report. You state the department will redact social security numbers from the responsive records pursuant to section 552.147(b) of the Government Code. ⁽¹⁾ You claim that the submitted information is excepted from disclosure pursuant to sections 552.101 and 552.130 of the Government Code. We have considered the exceptions 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 claim section 552.101 in conjunction with 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. See Indus. Found. v. Tex. Indus. Accident Bd., 540 S.W.2d 668, 685 (Tex. 1976). The types of information considered to be 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. Generally, only highly intimate information that implicates the privacy of an individual is withheld. However, in certain instances where it is demonstrated that 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.

In this instance, the request for information reveals the requestor knows the nature of the incident to which the submitted information pertains and the identity of the individual involved. Therefore, withholding only the individual's identity or certain details of the incident from this requestor would not preserve the individual's common-law right to privacy. Thus, to protect the privacy of the individual to whom it pertains, the submitted information must be withheld from this requestor in its entirety under section 552.101 of the Government Code in conjunction with common-law privacy. ⁽²⁾

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,

Debbie K. Lee

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

DKL/som

Ref: ID# 450977

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. Section 552.147(b) of the Government Code authorizes a governmental body to redact a living person's social security number from public release without the necessity of requesting a decision from this office. See Gov't Code § 552.147(b).

2. As our ruling is dispositive, we do not address your remaining arguments.

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