Request By:
Mr. Lyle G. Robey
Stoll, Keenon & Park
1000 First Security Plaza
Lexington, Kentucky 40507-1380
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
We are in receipt of your letter of February 8, 1982, which reads in its entirety as follows:
"Re: Denial of Open Records Request - Mark Nadler - University of Kentucky
"Dear Sir: This is to request a review of the denials by Jack C. Blanton, Vice President for Business Affairs and Treasurer, and official record custodian of the University of Kentucky, which denials are dated January 18, 1982 and two dated February 3, 1982."
You did not enclose a copy of the letters you mentioned. We have at hand only the letter dated January 18, 1982. This opinion will have to be limited to that letter in which Mr. Blanton responded to Mr. Nadler's request which was stated as follows:
"Under the Kentucky Open Records Act, KRS 61.870 et seq., I hereby request permission to examine the proceedings of the Morbidity and Mortality committee of the Department of Surgery at the University of Kentucky's Albert B. Chandler Medical Center. This request shall cover any and all proceedings from January 1, 1981 to the present."
Mr. Blanton's reply letter of January 18, 1982 contained the following:
"The records which you wish to examine are those of departmental meetings held for the specific purpose of 'reviewing and analyzing on a peer-group basis the clinical work of the department or division'. These departmental meetings have been mandated by the Board of Trustees of the University of Kentucky and the Counsel of Supervisors of University Hospital in accord with the guidelines of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals. The University Hospital is a duly licensed hospital within this Commonwealth.
"Accordingly, your request to inspect the specific records is denied pursuant to KRS 61.878(j) which excludes from inspection 'public records or information the disclosure of which is prohibited or restricted or otherwise made confidential by enactment of the general assembly'".
Mr. Blanton's letter failed to cite the particular statute which makes the requested records confidential, however, on the same date Mr. John C. Darsie, Jr., General Counsel, University of Kentucky, sent a letter to the Attorney General explaining in more detail why Mr. Nadler's request was denied. Mr. Darsie cites KRS 311.377(2) as the statutory provision making the requested records confidential. Said statute reads as follows:
"The proceedings, records, opinions, conclusions and recommendations of any committee, board, commission, professional standards review organization, or other entity as referred to in subsection (1) of this section, shall be confidential and privileged and shall not be subject to discovery, subpoena, or introduction into evidence, in any civil action in any court or in any administrative proceeding before any board, body, or committee, whether federal, state, county, or city. This subsection shall not apply to any proceedings or matters governed exclusively by federal law or federal regulation."
We have considered, not only subsection (2) of said statute but the entire statute, KRS 311.377, and it is our opinion that this statute does in fact make the proceedings of the Morbidity and Mortality Committee of the Department of Surgery at the University of Kentucky Albert B. Chandler Medical Center confidential. We conclude that Mr. Blanton acted correctly in denying inspection of the requested records under KRS 61.878(1)(j) but that his answer was insufficient in failing to cite KRS 311.377 as the specific statute which is the act of the General Assembly which applies to the records. By copy of this letter we are notifying Mr. Blanton of this deficiency which we hope will be avoided in the future.