Request By:
Robert G. Zweigart, Esq.
City Attorney
City of Maysville
3rd and Bridge Street
Municipal Building
Maysville, Kentucky 41056
Opinion
Opinion By: Frederic J. Cowan, Attorney General; Thomas R. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General
Mr. Frank Robinson has appealed to the Attorney General pursuant to KRS 61.880(2) your denial of his request to inspect an ambulance report in the city's custody.
In his letter to the city fire department, dated May 31, 1988, Mr. Robinson requested that, pursuant to the terms and provisions of the Federal Freedom of Information Act, he be furnished with a copy of an ambulance report, dated May 26, 1988, pertaining to an accident on West Second Street involving Maysville Mayor Harriet Cartmell.
You replied to Mr. Robinson in a letter dated June 1, 1988. You denied his request and advised him in part as follows:
". . . However, it is my opinion that the requested information is excluded from disclosure under the Kentucky Open Records Act, specifically KRS 61.878(1)(a), and the corresponding section of City of Maysville Code of Ordinances Section 30.11(A)(1). These laws protect 'Public records containing information of a personal nature where the public disclosure thereof would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. ' 83 OAG 344 ruled that reports of public ambulance runs are exempt from public inspection as a protection against an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. . . ."
Mr. Robinson's letter of appeal maintains that the ambulance report in this particular case should be released. "However, I think this case is unique in that it involves a public official, likely acting in her public capacity, requiring assistance by the publicly funded ambulance service following an accident on May 26." Mr. Robinson states that the local police were involved in the investigation of the accident but no citations were issued.
OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
The appealing party has referred to the Federal Freedom of Information Act in support of his request to inspect the document in question. That Act applies to public records of federal agencies. This state, of course, has an Open Records Act (KRS 61.870 to KRS 61.884) which applies to public records of state and local governmental agencies.
While there is no specific provision in the Open Records Act requiring that information pertaining to ambulance reports be kept confidential, there is a provision that a public agency need not permit the inspection of documents if to do so would involve the unwarranted invasion of a person's privacy. Among the public records which may be excluded from inspection in the absence of a court order authorizing inspection are those described in KRS 61.878(1)(a) as, "Public records containing information of a personal nature where the public disclosure thereof would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. "
In OAG 83-344, copy enclosed, this office concluded that records of a public ambulance service, pertaining to ambulance runs, which included names and addresses of persons transported by the service, ages of persons transported, where they were picked up by the ambulance service, where they were taken and the nature of the run (such as automobile accident, shooting, stabbing, etc.) may be withheld from public inspection as a protection against an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy pursuant to KRS 61.878(1)(a).
The right to protection against an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy must be balanced against the public's right to know. In OAG 83-344, we could find no compelling reason why the interest of the public to know all the information described in the preceding paragraph would outweigh the rights of the persons involved to their privacy. It was also noted that police accident reports are open to public inspection and some of the information requested relative to some ambulance runs would be available from that source. See OAG 76-568 and OAG 86-25, copies enclosed, dealing with the confidentiality of material contained in the reports and records of an ambulance service.
If the information has been incorporated into a police report it could be requested from the police department. In OAG 81-395, copy enclosed, at page two, we said in part that what a person does in his own home or on his own property is, generally, his private affair, but when he enters onto the public ways and breaks the law or inflicts a tort on his fellow man he forfeits his privacy to a certain extent. The public interest in police business outweighs the privacy interest of victims, offenders and police personnel but that same public interest in the business of public ambulance services is not, generally, present or necessary.
It is, therefore, the opinion of the Attorney General that the city's policy, relative to reports of ambulance runs by the public ambulance service, whereby it prohibits, pursuant to KRS 61.878(1)(a), public inspection of the records relating to particular persons transported and specific facts pertaining to those persons and their injuries is justified.
As required by statute a copy of this opinion is being sent to the appealing party, Mr. Frank Robinson, who has the right to challenge it in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5) and KRS 61.882.