Request By:
Ms. Anne Leitsch
Paralegal
Kentucky Labor Cabinet
The 127 Building
U.S. Highway 127 South
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; Thomas R. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General
Mr. Babak Navabi has appealed to the Attorney General pursuant to KRS 61.880 your partial denial of his request to inspect certain records in the custody of the Labor Cabinet.
In a letter to the Kentucky Labor Cabinet, dated June 19, 1987, Mr. Navabi requested that the Labor Cabinet make available to him photostatic copies of all records pertaining to the Cabinet's investigation of the Heston Energy Development Corporation relative to payment of wages of its employees.
You replied to Mr. Navabi in a letter dated June 23, 1987. You advised him that the Labor Cabinet's Division of Employment Standards and Mediation investigation file relative to Heston Energy Development Corporation contains the investigator's worknotes which are exempt from public inspection pursuant to KRS 61.878(1)(g) and (h) and one employee interview statement which is exempt from public inspection under KRS 338.101(1)(a) and KRS 61.878(1)(j). All other documents and forms in the file were made available to Mr. Navabi for inspection and copying.
The undersigned Assistant Attorney General contacted you by telephone on July 21, 1987, and you advised that after a further consideration of Mr. Navabi's request for documents, the Labor Cabinet will release a copy of the one employee interview statement. The Labor Cabinet, however, will not release a copy of the investigator's worknotes.
OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
Among the public records which may be excluded from public inspection in the absence of a court order authorizing inspection are those records described in KRS 61.878(1)(g) and (h):
"(g) Preliminary drafts, notes, correspondence with private individuals, other than correspondence which is intended to give notice of final action of a public agency;
"(h) Preliminary recommendations, and preliminary memoranda in which opinions are expressed or policies formulated or recommended;"
In connection with the worknotes of an occupational safety and health compliance officer, we have said that where those worknotes are compiled in the ordinary course of an investigation of an employer worksite, and contain preliminary handwritten drafts of possible citations and correspondence with private persons which does not give notice of final action, the material is preliminary and the exemption set forth in KRS 61.878(1)(g) can be applied. Furthermore, work papers and intra office memoranda may be exempted from public inspection pursuant to KRS 61.878(1)(h). Thus, worknotes containing the compliance officer's hand-drawn diagrams of the worksite or work operations and his observations, opinions and preliminary drafts of possible citations may be excluded from public inspection under KRS 61.878(1)(h). See OAG 87-25, OAG 87-9 and OAG 86-37, copies of which are enclosed.
It is, therefore, the opinion of the Attorney General that you acted in conformity with the Open Records Act (KRS 61.870 to KRS 61.884) in denying access to those records contained in the Labor Cabinet's Division of Employment Standards and Mediation investigative file consisting of the investigator's worknotes. KRS 61.878(1)(g) and (h).
As required by statute, a copy of this opinion is being sent to the requesting party, Mr. Babak Navabi, who has the right to challenge it in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5).