December 21, 2012

Mr. Gregory A. Alicie

Open Records Specialist

Baytown Police Department

3200 North Main Street

Baytown, Texas 77521

OR2012-20712

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# 474536.

The Baytown Police Department (the "department") received a request for a specified incident report. We understand you will redact partial social security numbers pursuant to section 552.147 of the Government Code. ⁽¹⁾ You claim that portions of the submitted information are excepted from disclosure under section 552.101 of the Government Code. We have considered the exception 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. 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. 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. This office has found that some kinds of medical information or information indicating disabilities or specific illnesses are excepted from required public disclosure under common-law privacy. See Open Records Decision No. 455 (1987) (prescription drugs, illnesses, operations, and physical handicaps).

However, we note the requestor may be the authorized representative of the minor whose privacy interests are at issue, and may have a right of access to information pertaining to that individual that would otherwise be confidential under common-law privacy. See Gov't Code § 552.023(a) ("person's authorized representative has special right of access, beyond right of general public, to information held by governmental body that relates to 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 individual requests information concerning himself). Because we are unable to determine whether the requestor is the authorized representative of the individual at issue, we must rule conditionally. Accordingly, if the requestor is acting as the individual's authorized representative, the department may not withheld the submitted information from the requestor under section 552.101 of the Government Code on this basis. However, if the requestor is not acting as the authorized representative of the individual at issue, the department must withhold the information you have marked under section 552.101 of the Government Code in conjunction with common-law privacy, and release the remaining information.

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/akg

Ref: ID# 474536

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 under the Act. Gov't Code § 552.147(b).

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