Request By:
[NO REQUESTBY IN ORIGINAL]
Opinion
Opinion By: CHRIS GORMAN, ATTORNEY GENERAL; Thomas R. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General
OPEN RECORDS DECISION
This matter comes to the Attorney General as an appeal by James J. Corbett in connection with his attempts to obtain copies of various documents.
This office has not been furnished with a copy of the letter of request from James J. Corbett to the public agency, the Fayette County Detention Center.
In his letter of appeal to this office, received February 17, 1994, James J. Corbett said in part as follows:
Over a month ago I mailed an Open Records request to the Lexington-Fayette County Jail in Lexington requesting a copy of the admission and discharge records for Ashby Crockett.
I also mailed them a letter of inquiry. As of this date, I have not received the records nor any communication from anyone at the jail.
On February 25, 1994, the undersigned Assistant Attorney General telephoned the Fayette County Detention Center and was directed to Lt. Shouse, the Assistant Director of Processing. Lt. Shouse was not aware of the receipt of a request for documents from James J. Corbett. She contacted the Division of Inmate Services which also had no record of a request for documents submitted by James J. Corbett.
Lt. Shouse advised that if Mr. Corbett wanted to submit or resubmit a request for copies of documents he should direct that request to:
Fayette County Detention Center
200 Clark Street
Lexington, Kentucky 40507
Attention: Ms. Margaret Dickey
Obviously the Fayette County Detention Center cannot respond to a request for documents if it did not receive such a request. We have no reason to doubt the statement of Lt. Shouse relative to the nonreceipt of the request letters in question. See 94-ORD-11.
Since the public agency did not receive the requests for documents from James J. Corbett, its failure to respond does not constitute a violation of the Open Records Act. One cannot respond to a letter or request which has not been received.
James J. Corbett may challenge this decision by initiating action in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5) and KRS 61.882. The Attorney General shall be notified of any action filed against any of the parties pursuant to KRS 61.880(3), but he shall not be named as a party to these actions or in any subsequent proceedings.