May 15, 2012

Ms. Linda Pemberton

Office of the City Attorney

City of Killeen

P.O. Box 1329

Killeen, Texas 76540-1329

OR2012-07146

Dear Ms. Pemberton:

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# 453927 (ID# W007494).

The City of Killeen (the "city") received a request for information pertaining to a specified incident. You claim the submitted information is excepted from disclosure under sections 552.101 and 552.108 of the Government Code. We have considered the exceptions you claim and reviewed the submitted information.

Section 552.101 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 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. See 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. See id. at 681-82. 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. See id. at 683. Generally, only highly intimate information implicating the privacy of an individual is withheld. However, in certain situations where the requestor knows the identity of the individual involved, as well as the nature of certain incidents, an entire report must be withheld to protect the individual's privacy.

You claim the submitted information is protected in its entirety by common-law privacy. In this instance, the submitted information reflects the requestor knows the identity of the individual involved, as well as the nature of the incident at issue. Therefore, withholding only the individual's identity or certain details of that incident from the requestor would not preserve the subject individual's common-law right of privacy. Accordingly, the city must withhold the submitted information in its entirety under section 552.101 of the Government Code in conjunction with common-law privacy. ⁽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,

Kenneth Leland Conyer

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

KLC/dls

Ref: ID# 453927

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. As our ruling is dispositive, we need not address your remaining argument against disclosure.

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