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 actions of the Department of Corrections (DOC) relative to the open records request of Bobby Blevins, dated August 2008, for copies of his "work records" violated the Open Records Act. For the reasons that follow, we find no violation of the Act.
By letter dated August 11, 2008, Robert F. Belen, Offender Information Services, Department of Corrections, responded to Mr. Blevins' request, advising:
Your letter to Commissioner Thompson has been forwarded to my office for response. Please refer to my correspondence with you dated July 30, 2008, wherein, this office does not maintain documentation concerning your work credit. Those records can be obtained at the institution in which you are presently incarcerated.
Shortly thereafter Mr. Blevins initiated the instant appeal. In his letter of appeal, Mr. Blevins asserted, in relevant part:
As you can see, I asked for records/information in regards to both my parole time credit and my work credit. I only receive[d] information regarding my work credit and/but I never [did] get an answer regarding my time credit while I was on parole.
After receipt of notification of the appeal, Leigh K. Meredith, Staff Attorney, Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, provided this office with a response to the issues raised in the appeal. In her response, she advised:
Nowhere in his letter notarized August 1, 2008 to DOC Commissioner Thompson does Inmate Blevins specifically request records relating to his parole credit. Thus the DOC did not violate the Open Records Act in response to the August 1, 2008 letter.
In addition, the DOC asserts that Mr. Blevins filed an open records request on July 23, 2008, "requesting any and all records in regards to my parole time credit and work credit . . . ." (Please see attached Exhibit 1, Mr. Blevins' open records request dated July 23, 2008.) On July 30, 2008, Mr. Robert Belen, DOC Offender Information Services, responded on behalf of the DOC and notified Inmate Blevins that "the only document concerning parole time credit would be in your resident record card. You may obtain a copy of it from the institution in which you are currently incarcerated. " (Please see attached Exhibit 2, open records response letter from Robert Belen dated July 30, 2008.) Mr. Belen then notified Inmate Blevins of the cost of obtaining a copy of his resident card from the institution. DOC Offender Information Services referred Inmate Blevins to the institution where he is housed as the custodian of the record.
Ms. Meredith further stated that Mr. Blevins' August 1, 2008, open records request, dated August 1, 2008, constituted a duplicative request, since he had already requested the same records from DOC in his July 23, 2008, request. She argued that since he had already been notified by Offender Information Services where to obtain his requested parole time credit records and the work credit records there were no remaining issues to resolve on appeal. We agree.
Addressing first Mr. Blevins' request for his work records, he was advised that the DOC did not maintain records relating to his work credit and advised that those records could be obtained at the institution in which he was presently incarcerated. The DOC's response was in compliance with KRS 61.872(4), which provides:
If the person to whom the application is directed does not have custody or control of the public record requested, that person shall notify the applicant and shall furnish the name and location of the official custodian of the agency's public records.
Accordingly, if he has not already done so, Mr. Blevins should submit his open records request to the attention of the custodian of records at the institution in which he is housed.
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 "[a]ny 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. Blevins can explain the necessity of reproducing the same records which either already have been provided or have been inspected by him, such as loss or destruction of the records, we can see no reason why DOC must satisfy the same request a second time. 95-ORD-47. However, as noted above, since Mr. Blevins had already been notified by Offender Information Services where to obtain his requested parole time credit records and work credit records there are no remaining issues to resolve on this appeal. Accordingly, we conclude that the DOC's actions relative to Mr. Blevins' open records request did not violate the Open Records Act.
A party aggrieved by this decision may appeal it by initiating an 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.