Request By:
[NO REQUESTBY IN ORIGINAL]
Opinion
Opinion By: Albert B. Chandler III, Attorney General; Amye L. Bensenhaver, Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
The question presented in this appeal is whether Otter Creek Correctional Center violated the Open Records Act in responding to Ricky Duff's May 24, 1999, request for various medical records relating to him, including skin tests and chest x-rays. For the reasons that follow, we find that O.C.C.C. did not violate the Act.
In a response dated May 25, 1999, O.C.C.C. medical records custodian Robin Hicks advised Mr. Duff that she was providing him with eleven copies of the medical records which he requested, but that an identical request for skin tests and chest x-rays, dated October 14, 1998, had been honored by Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex on October 21, 1998, and would not be honored again. This appeal followed.
In subsequent correspondence addressed to this office, Department of Corrections' staff attorney Tamela Biggs confirmed that Ms. Hicks did not furnish Mr. Duff with copies of the skin test and chest x-rays that he had already received. Relying on KRS 61.872(6) and 95-ORD-105, she argued that O.C.C.C. is not obligated to honor duplicative requests. In support, she attached a copy of Mr. Duff's October 14 request, indicating that his skin tests and chest x-rays were mailed to him on October 21. Ms. Biggs acknowledged that Ms. Hicks's response was deficient, insofar as she failed to cite the appropriate authorities, but maintained that her position was otherwise correct. We agree.
With respect to duplicative requests for documents, the Attorney General has stated that an agency is not "required to satisfy the identical request a second time in the absence of some justification for resubmitting the request." 95-ORD-47, p. 6. We reasoned:
We do not believe, however, that [an agency] is required to satisfy the identical request a second time in the absence of some justification for resubmitting that request. KRS 61.872(2) provides that "any person shall have the right to inspect public records" during regular office hours or by receiving copies through the mail. Common sense dictates, however, that repeated requests for the same records may become unreasonably burdensome or disrupt the agency's essential functions. Thus, at page 6 of OAG 92-91 this office observed:
To produce . . . records once entails some inconvenience to the agency; to produce them three and four times requires a level of "patience and long-suffering" that the legislature could not have intended. Citing OAG 77-151, p. 3.
Here, as in our earlier decisions, unless Mr. Duff can explain the necessity of reproducing the same records which have already been released to him, such as loss or destruction of the records, we can see no reason why O.C.C.C. must satisfy the same request a second time. 1
Although Ms. Biggs acknowledged O.C.C.C.'s error in failing to justify its refusal to release the skin tests and chest x-rays with specificity, we remind the facility that:
The language of the statute directing agency action is exact. It requires the custodian of records to provide particular and detailed information in response to a request for documents.
Edmondson v. Alig., Ky.App., 926 S.W.2d 856, 858 (1996). This includes, at a minimum, citation to KRS 61.872(6) and an explanation of how it applies to the records withheld.
A party aggrieved by this decision may appeal it by initiating action in the appropriate circuit court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5) and KRS 61.882. Pursuant to KRS 61.880(3), the Attorney General should be notified of any action in circuit court, but should not be named as a party in that action or in any subsequent proceeding.
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 In a letter received after this decision was written, Mr. Duff acknowledged that he had previously received a copy of his chest x-rays and skin tests, but indicated that he sent them to the American Corrections Association to verify that he has been exposed to tuberculosis. While this explains his need for a second copy, it does not necessarily obligate O.C.C.C. to produce a second copy for him since the unavailability of the records was occasioned by his shortsightedness in failing to retain a copy. O.C.C.C. may do so upon prepayment of reasonable copying charges, but we suggest that Mr. Duff retain a copy of all records obtained under the Open Records Act, as he does of all correspondence relative to his open records appeals, to avoid this problem in the future.