Opinion
Opinion By: Jack Conway, Attorney General; James M. Ringo, Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
The question presented in this appeal is whether the Louisville Metro Corrections Department's (LMCD) disposition of Ja-Ron Teague's request violated the Open Records Act. For the reasons that follow, we affirm LMCD's partial denial of Mr. Teague's request, under authority of KRS 197.025(2), incorporated into the Open Records Act by operation of KRS 61.878(1)(l). 1
By letter dated November 23, 2007, Mr. Teague submitted a request to the LMCD requesting a copy of records indicating his "housing locations from 9-10-2007 until 11-23-2007" and his "disciplinary actions from 9-10-2007 until 11-23-2007." In addition to the above, as summarized here, he requested a certified copy of the United States case Tate vs. Frey, consent decree, bond and sentence vacates; ARAMARK food services contracts; food services menus; ARAMARK dietician and complete list of food items that ARAMARK stated they would serve at LMCD; state level contract with the Kentucky Department of Corrections; PTS medical services, doctors and nurses (medical and mental health), medical policies and procedures, code of ethics, rules of medical practice, prescribing medications, bonuses for saving money.
By letter dated December 13, 2007, Suzanne D. Cordery, Assistant Jefferson County Attorney, responded to Mr. Teague's request, advising that LMCD had received his request on December 6, 2007, and she was responding to his request on behalf of the agency. In her response, she advised that his request for a copy of his housing locations from 9-10-2007 until 11-23-2007 and his disciplinary actions from 9-10-2007 until 11-23-2007 was granted, at ten cents per page copying fee. Citing KRS 197.025(2), Ms. Cordery denied the remainder of Mr. Teague's request, advising that, although some of his requests were vague and appeared to ask questions instead of making a request for a record, it was possible to discern that the topics did not specifically refer to him.
KRS 197.025(2) provides:
KRS 61.872 to the contrary notwithstanding, the department shall not be required to comply with a request for any record from any inmate confined in a jail or any facility or any individual on active supervision under the jurisdiction of the department, unless the request is for a record which contains a specific reference to that individual.
In construing this provision, the Attorney General has observed:
By its express terms, this provision applies to requests for records submitted by inmates "confined in a jail or any facility . . . under the jurisdiction of the department [of Corrections]." The statute provides that "the department shall not be required to comply . . ." with such requests unless the record requested specifically references the requester. Although the statute does not specifically provide that jails or facilities under the Department's jurisdiction are not required to comply with such requests, we are unwilling to construe the statute so strictly that it yields the absurd result that an inmate can obtain from a jail those records which he cannot obtain from the Department. Given the broad oversight role statutorily assigned to the Department relative to jails, 2 and the common interest of these agencies in avoiding disclosure of records that implicate security concerns and in stemming the swelling tide of frivolous inmate requests, we find that an interpretation of KRS 197.025(2) that does not include jails is legally unsupportable in light of the underlying purpose of KRS 197.025 taken as a whole.
03-ORD-074, p. 3, 4. Mr. Teague is "an inmate confined in a jail, " and, under this line of reasoning, LMCD may properly withhold disclosure of records to Mr. Teague, unless they contain a specific reference to him. 06-ORD-133. The records at issue here, as summarized above, generally pertain to a federal case and supporting documents, food service contracts and food items and menus, medical policies and procedures, codes of ethics, rules of medical practice, pertaining to doctors and nurses. Since these records do not contain "a specific reference" to Mr. Teague, we find that 07-ORD-193 and 03-ORD-074, respectively, are controlling; a copy of each decision is attached hereto and incorporated by reference. As consistently recognized by the Attorney General, KRS 197.025(2) expressly authorizes correctional facilities like LMCD to deny a request by an inmate unless the record(s) contain a specific reference to that inmate. Because the records at issue do not contain a specific reference to Mr. Teague, as required by the language of KRS 197.025(2), he is not entitled to inspect or to receive copies of those records. 07-ORD-193; 03-ORD-074. Accordingly, LMCD properly relied upon KRS 197.025(2), incorporated into the Open Records Act by operation of KRS 61.878(1)(l), in denying this portion of Mr. Teague's request.
With respect to the request for his "housing locations from 9-10-2007 until 11-23-2007" and "disciplinary actions from 9-10-2007 until 11-23-2007," the LMCD advised that this request was granted and made available to Mr. Teague; we find that the issue as to these records is moot. 40 KAR 1:030, Section 6.
Finally, addressing the issue of timeliness, the LMCD's response to the letter of appeal indicated that it received Mr. Teague's request on December 6, 2007, (a copy of LMCD's file copy of Mr. Teague's request provided to this office bears a date stamp of December 6, 2007) and responded to him on December 13, 2007. This was within the five (5) business day response time required by KRS 197.025(7), the specific statute governing a correctional facility's response time to an open records request. 00-ORD-170.
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.
Distributed to:
Ja-Ron S. TeagueTom CampbellWilliam P. O'BrienSuzanne D. Cordery
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 KRS 61.878(1)(l) provides for the nondisclosure of:
Public records or information the disclosure of which is prohibited or restricted or otherwise made confidential by enactment of the General Assembly.
2 See, for example, KRS 196.030(1)(e) (vesting the Department with the duty to administer and enforce KRS Chapter 441 "relating to the development and enforcement of jail standards; training of jailers and jail personnel, and jail planning and construction"); KRS 441.055 (vesting the Department with the duty to adopt and revise jail standards relating to health and safety, fire safety, operations, recordkeeping, administration, training, treatment of prisoners, medical care, jail equipment and construction, and standards review process); and KRS 441.064 (vesting the Department with the duty to employ jail consultants, inspect jails, and notify jailers of deficiencies).