Opinion
Opinion By: Andy Beshear,Attorney General;Michelle D. Harrison,Assistant Attorney General
Open Records Decision
Noel Mark Botts initiated this appeal by letter dated November 26, 2018, challenging the inaction of the Franklin County Sheriff's Office ("Sheriff's Office") upon receipt of his November 9, 2018, request for "any and all citations issued for vehicles passing school [buses] when the bus was loading or unloading passengers for the last three (3) years" and "any and all documents and information regarding the outcome of the citations issued" relative to the aforementioned offenses. In addition, he requested "any and all documents and information for all persons not charged or who had charges dropped for passing a school bus while" passengers were loading or unloading. This office issued a Notification to Agency of Receipt of Open Records Appeal to Franklin County Sheriff Patrick Melton and Franklin County Attorney Rick Sparks on December 3, 2018, advising that pursuant to 40 KAR 1:030 Section 2, "the agency may respond to this appeal," but any response "must be received no later than December 7, 2018." As of this date, the Attorney General has not received any written response from the agency or its counsel, nor has anyone contacted this office to request additional time in which to submit a response. Neither of the Notifications was returned as being undeliverable. This inaction by the Sheriff's Office constitutes a clear violation of KRS 61.880(1).
As a public agency, the Sheriff's Office must comply with procedural and substantive provisions of the Open Records Act. More specifically, KRS 61.880(1) dictates the procedure that a public agency must follow in responding to requests made under the Open Records Act. Pursuant to KRS 61.880(1):
Each public agency, upon any request for records made under KRS 61.870 to 61.884, shall determine within three (3) days , excepting Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays, after the receipt of any such request whether to comply with the request and shall notify in writing the person making the request, within the three (3) day period, of its decision . An agency response denying, in whole or in part, inspection of any record shall include a statement of the specific exception authorizing the withholding of the record and a brief explanation of how the exception applies to the record withheld . The response shall be issued by the official custodian or under his authority, and it shall constitute final agency action.
(Emphasis added.) The language of KRS 61.880(1) "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, 926 S.W.2d 856, 858 (Ky. App. 1996). A "limited and perfunctory response" does not "even remotely compl[y] with the requirements of the Act . . . ." Id . See 04-ORD-208; 12-ORD-085. Failing to respond, as the Sheriff's Office did here, violates the mandatory language of the Act.
The Sheriff's Office had two opportunities to fully discharge its duty under KRS 61.880(1); first, upon receipt of Mr. Botts' request, and second, upon receiving the Notification from this office. A public agency such as the Sheriff's Office is not permitted to elect a course of inaction. See 17-ORD-129. The Attorney General has consistently recognized that procedural requirements of the Open Records Act "are not mere formalities, but are an essential part of the prompt and orderly processing of an open records request." 04-ORD-084, p. 3 (citing 93-ORD-125, p. 5); 05-ORD-190; 09-ORD-186; 12-ORD-085. Inasmuch as the Sheriff's Office did not respond to Mr. Botts' request, it necessarily failed to advance a legal argument in support of its apparent denial of that request.
Pursuant to KRS 61.880(2)(c), "[t]he burden of proof in sustaining the action shall rest with the agency. . . ." See Edmondson above. The Sheriff's Office must provide Mr. Botts with a copy of any existing record(s) in the custody of the agency which is responsive to his request unless the Sheriff's Office satisfies its burden of proof by articulating, in writing, a basis for denying access in terms of one or more of the exceptions codified at KRS 61.878(1)(a) through (n). Pursuant to KRS 61.872(3)(b), the "official custodian shall mail the copies upon receipt of all fees and the cost of mailing." 1 If the Sheriff's Office "does not have custody or control" of any records identified in Mr. Botts' request, the Sheriff's Office "shall notify [Mr. Botts] and shall furnish the name and location of the official custodian of the agency's public records." 2 KRS 61.872(4). Compliance with provisions of the Open Records Act "is mandatory, and is as much of a duty owed by a public agency as the provision of other services to the public." 03-ORD-067, p. 2 (citing 93-ORD-125, p. 5); 11-ORD-042; 15-ORD-152. Because the Sheriff's Office did not perform these functions, it violated the Open Records Act. See 09-ORD-186; 10-ORD-093.
Either party may appeal this decision by initiating action in the appropriate circuit court under KRS 61.880(5) and KRS 61.882. Pursuant to KRS 61.880(3), the Attorney General shall be notified of any action in circuit court, but shall not be named as a party in that action or in any subsequent proceeding.
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 If the Sheriff's Office possesses no responsive records, it must promptly indicate as much to Mr. Botts in writing. On this issue, the Attorney General has consistently held:
[A]n agency's inability to produce records due to their nonexistence is tantamount to a denial and . . . it is incumbent on the agency to so state in clear and direct terms. 01-ORD-38, p. 9 [citations omitted]. While it is obvious that an agency cannot furnish that which it does not have or which does not exist, a written response that does not so state is deficient. [Citations omitted.]
02-ORD-144, p. 3; 03-ORD-207. Accordingly, the Sheriff's Office must ascertain whether any existing documents are responsive to Mr. Botts' request, promptly advise him in writing of its findings, and briefly explain the nonexistence of such records, if appropriate.
2 This office has recognized that "it is incumbent on the [public agency] to make reasonable efforts to ensure that an employee who receives a misdirected open records request immediately forwards that request to the agency's official custodian for timely processing, or at a minimum notifies the requester and 'furnish [es] the name and location of the custodian of the public record.' KRS 61.872(4)." 03-ORD-032, p. 2 (emphasis added); 12-ORD-153 (following Baker v. Jones, 199 S.W.3d 749, 752 (Ky. App. 2006)(holding otherwise "would be tantamount to encouraging our government officers to 'bury their heads in the sand' to public matters with which they are charged")); 15-ORD-136.
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