Request By:
Mark York
WIEL-AM and WKMO-FM
Box L
Elizabethtown, Kentucky 42701
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Cicely D. Jaracz, Assistant Attorney General
You have requested the Attorney General to issue an opinion on whether records kept and maintained by the Hardin County Ambulance Service are open to public inspection under Kentucky Open Records law. Specifically, you wish to know if the nature of any ambulance runs are open to public inspection, including but not limited to:
A. Name of the person being transported by the service,
B. The address of that person,
C. Age of that person,
D. Where that person was picked up by the Ambulance service,
E. Where that person was taken,
F. The nature of the run such as auto accident, shooting, stabbing, etc.
OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
It is the opinion of the Attorney General that the nature of any ambulance runs including items A through F above are not open to public inspection under the Open Records law.
The Hardin County Ambulance Service is a public agency pursuant to KRS 61.870(1) as it was created by the Hardin Fiscal Court which budgeted $400,000 on July 1, 1983 for the 1983-84 fiscal year operating and maintenance costs. Therefore, the records prepared by the ambulance service are public records pursuant to KRS 61.870(2) and open to public inspection unless exempted.
It is our opinion that the records requested are exempted from public inspection (except upon court order) pursuant to KRS 61.878(1)(a) which exempts:
Public records containing information of a personal nature where the public disclosure thereof would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
The right to protection against an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy is balanced against the public's right to know. Consistent with OAG 76-568, we can see no compelling reason why the interest of the public to know all the aforementioned requested information on an ambulance run outweighs the right of the individual involved to personal privacy. Of course, police accident reports are open to public inspection, and some, if not all, of the requested information would be available in this manner. OAG 76-478.
Therefore, it is the opinion of this office that the reports of ambulance runs, including the name, address and age of person transported, where the person was picked up and transported, and the nature of the run are exempted from public inspection as a protection against an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. KRS 61.878(1)(a).