August 24, 2012

Ms. Katie Anderson

For Cedar Hill Independent School District

Strasburger & Price, L.L.P.

901 Main Street, Suite 4400

Dallas, Texas 75202-3794

OR2012-13519

Dear Ms. Anderson:

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# 463106.

The Cedar Hill Independent School District (the "district"), which you represent, received a request for legal fees paid by the district on behalf of a named individual or any other individual regarding a specified lawsuit. You claim the submitted information is excepted from disclosure under section 552.103 of the Government Code and privileged under rule 503 of the Texas Rules of Evidence and rule 192.5 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. We have considered your arguments and reviewed the submitted representative sample of information. ⁽¹⁾

We note the submitted information was the subject of a previous request for information, in response to which this office issued Open Records Letter No. 2012-12932 (2012). In that ruling, we held the district may withhold certain information under rule 503 of the Texas Rules of Evidence and rule 192.5 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, and must release the remaining information. As we have no indication the law, facts, or circumstances upon which the prior ruling was based have changed, we conclude the district must continue to rely on Open Records Letter No. 2012-12932 as a previous determination and withhold or release the submitted information in accordance with it. See Open Records Decision No. 673 (2001) (so long as law, facts, and circumstances on which prior ruling was based have not changed, first type of previous determination exists where requested information is precisely same information as was addressed in prior attorney general ruling, ruling is addressed to same governmental body, and ruling concludes the information is or is not excepted from disclosure.)

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,

Kristi L. Wilkins

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

KLW/ag

Ref: ID# 463106

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. 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.

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