Opinion
Opinion By: Andy Beshear,Attorney General;Mitchel T. Denham,Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Open Records Decision
The question presented in this appeal is whether the University of Louisville Athletic Association violated the Open Records Act by its denial of Brendan McCarthy's November 9, 2015, request, as Managing Editor for the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, for "any/all requests issued by federal, state, or local law enforcement agencies to the University of Louisville Athletic Association for documents/materials from 1/1/2014 through present date" along with whatever was produced in response thereto. We find no violation of the Act.
In 16-ORD-026 (copy attached), issued this same date, we ruled that KRS 61.878(1)(h) exempted from disclosure subpoenas issued during an ongoing investigation by a grand jury in a pre-indictment stage where the recipient of the subpoenas was cooperating with a law enforcement agency and the Commonwealth's Attorney had requested confidentiality for the subpoenas and records associated with them. We found that the likelihood of harm to the ongoing investigation satisfied the standards enunciated in
City of Fort Thomas v. Cincinnati Enquirer, 406 S.W.3d 842 (Ky. 2013). In so ruling, we stated that the exemption extended also to the records produced in response to the subpoenas. Since this appeal relates to the same grand jury investigation at the same stage, we find that our decision in 16-ORD-026 controls the issues in the present appeal, and therefore adopt it as the basis of our decision herein. As such, we find no violation of the Open Records Act in the denial of Mr. McCarthy's request in this instance. 1
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 proceedings.
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 The Athletic Association should note that upon conclusion of the grand jury investigation it may not be able to rely on this exemption to withhold the law enforcement requests or any documents it may have produced in response to those requests.