May 31, 2012

Mr. Stephen A. Cumbie

Assistant City Attorney

City of Fort Worth

1000 Throckmorton Street

Fort Worth, Texas 76102

OR2012-08371

Dear Mr. Cumbie:

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# 457581 (# W016150).

The City of Fort Worth (the "city") received a request for information pertaining to specified incidents. 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. ⁽¹⁾

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. Common-law privacy 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 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. Generally, only highly intimate information that implicates the privacy of an individual is withheld. However, in certain instances, where it is demonstrated 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 requestor knows the identity of the individual involved as well as the nature of the information in the submitted reports. Therefore, withholding only the individual's identity or certain details of the incidents from the requestor would generally not preserve the subject individual's common-law right of privacy. However, the requestor may be an authorized representative of the individual whose information is at issue and, thus, have a right of access to this individual's private information under section 552.023 of the Government Code. See Gov't Code § 552.023(a) ("[a] person or a person's authorized representative has a special right of access, beyond the right of the general public, to information held by a governmental body that relates to the person and that is protected from public disclosure by laws intended to protect that person's privacy interests"); Open Records Decision No. 481 at 4 (1987) (privacy theories not implicated when individuals request information concerning themselves). Accordingly, if the requestor is not an authorized representative of the individual whose information is at issue, then, to protect the privacy of the individual, the city must withhold the submitted information in its entirety under section 552.101 of the Government Code in conjunction with common-law privacy. However, if the requestor is an authorized representative of the individual whose information is at issue, then the requestor has a right of access to the submitted information pursuant to section 552.023 of the Government Code, and the city must release it to him.

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# 457581

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. You state the city has redacted the following information: Texas motor vehicle record information in accordance with section 552.130(c) of the Government Code and the previous determinations issued to the city in Open Records Letter Nos. 2006-14726 (2006) and 2007-00198 (2007); and social security numbers in accordance with section 552.147 of the Government Code. See Gov't Code §§ 552.130, 552.147(b), 552.301(c); Open Records Decision No. 673 at 7-8 (2001).

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