Request By:
[NO REQUESTBY IN ORIGINAL]
Opinion
Opinion By: Albert B. Chandler III, Attorney General; James M. Ringo, Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
This matter is before the Attorney General on appeal from the Cabinet for Workforce Development's denial of the open records request of Pamela E. Sapp, for copies of:
Any and all records of the person(s) who made the decision to place Pamela E. Sapp, [social security number] , on agency directed sick leave on or around April of 1996; and
Any and all records of the person(s) who made the decision to suspend Pamela E. Sapp, [social security number] , on or about October of 1996.
Upon advisement of the amount I owe for the records, I will remit. Thank you.
Sherry R. Deatrick, General Counsel, on behalf of the Cabinet, denied Ms. Sapp's request stating:
This is to notify you that the Cabinet for Workforce Development is unable to respond to these requests, pursuant to KRS 61.872(3). Requesters must describe the materials sought with enough specificity to allow the agency to identify and locate the records. See, e.g., In re: Larry G. Bryson/Kentucky Labor Cabinet , 97-ORD-46 (March 19, 1997). The Office of Attorney General has stated that "[a] description is precise if it is 'clearly stated or depicted;' 'strictly defined, accurately stated; definite,' and 'devoid of anything vague, equivocal, or uncertain.'" Id. "If a requester cannot describe the documents he wishes to inspect with sufficient specificity there is no requirement that the public agency conduct a search for such material." Id. An agency need not comply with blanket requests for information. OAG 92-56.
Your request fails to state with particularity the nature and time period of the records being sought. Further, the request fails to clearly identify the person(s) whose records you seek. The Cabinet for Workforce Development is unable to identify and locate the records you seek due to this lack of specificity. Therefore, your request for open records dated December 12, 1999 is denied.
We are asked to determine if the Cabinet violated provisions of the Open Records Act in denying Ms. Sapp's request. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the Cabinet did not violate the Act in denying the request. Because the request was a blanket request for information and failed to identify the records sought or the names of the persons whose records were being sought with sufficient specificity to enable the agency to identify, locate, and retrieve the records Ms. Sapp was requesting, the Cabinet properly denied the request.
In 97-ORD 16, this office considered a public agency's duties relative to providing copies of public records upon request. At page 2 and 3 of that decision, we observed:
KRS 61.872(3) establishes guidelines for records access under the Open Records Act. That statute provides:
The Open Records Act thus contemplates records access by one of two means: On site inspection during the regular office hours of the agency, in suitable facilities provided by the agency, or receipt of the records from the agency through the mail. Thus, a requester who both lives and works in the same county where the public records are located may be required to inspect the records prior to receiving copies. A requester who lives or works in a county other than the county where the public records are located may demand that the agency provide him with copies of records, without inspecting those records, if he precisely describes the records and they are readily available within the agency. See, e.g., 95-ORD-52; 96-ORD-186.
Ms. Sapp lives and works in Daviess County, and the records are located in Franklin County, thus satisfying the first requirement of KRS 61.872(3)(b). However, she failed to precisely describe the requested records with sufficient precision to satisfy the second requirement of that provision.
Moreover, the Attorney General has long recognized that a public agency is not statutorily obligated to honor a request for information as opposed to a request for specifically described public records. For example, in 93-ORD-51 this office held that the Open Records Act:
was not intended to provide a requester with particular "information," or to require public agencies to compile information to conform to the parameters of a given request. See, e.g., OAG 76-375; OAG 79-547; OAG 81-335, OAG 86-51; OAG 87-84; OAG 89-77; OAG 89-81; OAG 90-19. Rather, the Law provides for inspection of reasonably identified records.
93-ORD-51, p. 3. Mirroring this view, in OAG 87-84 we observed:
Public agencies are not required by the Open Records Act to gather and supply information independent of that which is set forth in public records. The public has a right to inspect public documents and to obtain whatever information is contained in them but the primary impact of the Open Records Act is to make records available for inspection and copying and not to require the gathering and supplying of information.
OAG 87-84, p. 3.
In her December 12, 1999 request, Ms. Sapp asked for copies of "any and all" records of the person(s) who made the decision to place her on directed sick leave around April of 1996 and "any and all" records of the person(s) who made the decision to suspend her on or about October 1996.
The request seeks unspecified records of unnamed persons. To this extent, the request is a request for information relative to the names of the persons whose actions may have affected Ms. Sapp in April 1996 and October 1996. As noted above, a public agency is not statutorily obligated to honor a request for information as opposed to a request for specifically described public records. Accordingly, we conclude the Cabinet properly denied this request for information.
Furthermore, in 99-ORD-14, this office expressly held:
[A] request for any and all records which contain a name, a term, or a phrase is not a properly framed open records request, and . . . generally need not be honored. Such a request places an unreasonable burden on the agency to produce often incalculable numbers of widely dispersed and ill-defined public records.
In the instant appeal, the request failed to precisely describe with sufficient specificity the nature and time period of the particular records sought. Moreover, the request failed to identify the person(s) whose records she was seeking. The request should be more specific in describing the particular documents sought to enable the agency to identify, locate, and retrieve the records. Thus, we conclude that Cabinet's denial of Ms. Sapp's request was proper and consistent with prior decisions of this office.
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.