Request By:
Mrs. Iris R. Barrett
Executive Director
Kentucky Occupational Safety
and Health Review Commission
104 Bridge Street
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
You have requested an opinion of the Attorney General as to whether the cords of cases pending before the Kentucky Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission are subject to public inspection under Kentucky's Open Records Law, KRS 61.870-61.884. You state that you have received a request from a newspaper for copies of the complaint and all other pleadings or filings of a case now pending before the Commission. You ask our opinion as to whether any or all of such papers are open records until the case is finally adjudicated by the Commission.
In the first place, we note that the Review Commission is a quasi-judicial body which makes administrative adjudication of charges of violation of Kentucky's occupational safety and health laws found in KRS Chapter 338. The pertinent portion of KRS 61.878 reads as follows:
"(1) The following public records are excluded from the application of KRS 61.870 to 61.884 and shall be subject to inspection only upon order of a court of competent jurisdiction:
* * *
"(f) Records of law enforcement agencies or agencies involved in administrative adjudication that were compiled in the process of detecting and investigating statutory or regulatory violations if the disclosure of the information would harm the agency by revealing the identity of informants not otherwise known or by premature release of information to be used in a prospective law enforcement action or administrative adjudication. Unless exempted by other provisions of KRS 61.870 to 61.884, public records exempted under this provision shall be open after enforcement action is completed or a decision if made to take no action. Provided, however that the exemptions provided by this subsection shall not be used by the custodial of the records to delay or impede the exercise of rights granted by KRS 61.870 to 61.884."
It is our opinion that the complaint and all other papers in a case before the Commission are public records and subject to public inspection unless the Commission finds that the premature release of information in the papers would harm the agency in the performance of its administrative adjudication. A finding that the making of the records available to public inspection would be harrful to the adjudication of the case should be supported by sufficient reasons. When the Commission denies inspection of a case file, it should state its reasons in writing to the requester and send a copy of its answer to the Attorney General as directed by KRS 61.880.
Since the file of the case before the Commission is similar to the file of a case in a court, we can see no general exception which would exclude the records from public inspection. A court, however, can close the file of a case to the public for sufficient reasons. We think that the same applies to the Review Commission.