Request By:
Hon. Richard C. Stephenson
Stoll, Keenon and Park
1000 First Security Plaza
Lexington, Kentucky 40507-1380
Opinion
Opinion By: Frederic J. Cowan, Attorney General; Nathan Goldman, Assistant Attorney General
In your letter to the Attorney General you ask the following question:
"When a proceeding has been instituted with the KCHR [Kentucky Commission on Human Rights] and has resulted in a conciliation agreement, may the KCHR or any of its officers or employees make public in any manner any information except the order of the KCHR embodying the terms of the conciliation agreement?"
From the text of your letter, we discern that you are concerned with the press releases of the KCHR. Those releases typically include information paraphrasing the allegations made in the complaint, a statement that the commission found probable cause and the terms of the conciliation agreement.
KRS 344.200(4) states, in part: "If the staff determines, after investigation, or if the commission determines after the review provided for in subsection (3) that there is probable cause to believe that the respondent has engaged in an unlawful practice, the commission staff shall endeavor to eliminate the alleged unlawful practice by conference, conciliation and persuasion. " If a conciliation agreement has been reached, ipso facto there must have been a determination of probable cause. Thus, we see no violation of such a statement in a press release.
KRS 344.200(4) also states, in part:
"Except for the terms of the conciliation agreement, neither the commission nor any officer or employee thereof shall make public, without the written consent of the complainant and the respondent, information concerning efforts, in a particular case to eliminate an unlawful practice by conference, conciliation, or persuasion whether or not there is a determination of probable cause or a conciliation agreement."
We cannot see how allegations raised by a complainant in the complaint come under this provision.
Nor do we believe that KRS 344.250(6) applies. That statute in general allows the Commission to investigate a complaint and to require the periodic filing of certain information required by the commission unrelated to a specific complaint. An allegation made in a complaint is not "information obtained by the commission pursuant to its authority under this section." KRS 344.250(6) (emphasis added). Insofar as OAG 84-376 and 85-5 differ they are hereby modified.
In