Annotations for Decision

Commonwealth v. Chestnut, 250 S.W.3d 655, 2008 Ky. LEXIS 116 (Ky. 2008). Full Details

Department of Correction’s argument regarding the unreasonable burden of complying with open records requests of inmates as a whole class of people missed the mark because the unreasonable burden language in KRS 61.872(6) focused on a singular “application,” not a group of applications from an entire class of applicants. Commonwealth v. Chestnut, 250 S.W.3d 655, 2008 Ky. LEXIS 116 (Ky. 2008). Full Details

Nothing in KRS 61.872(2) contains any sort of particularity requirement. Rather, KRS 61.872(2) only requires that one seeking to inspect public records may be required to submit a written application describing the records to be inspected. The General Assembly chose only to require the record to be described; it did not add any modifiers like “particularly” described. Commonwealth v. Chestnut, 250 S.W.3d 655, 2008 Ky. LEXIS 116 (Ky. 2008). Full Details

Other than the exception found at KRS 197.025, the open records laws identify no class or type of persons, even prisoners, who are held to a more stringent standard when submitting open records requests. This presumption in favor of broad availability of public records is even stronger when a person, like an inmate, seeks access to public records pertaining to himself, under KRS 61.884; the Department of Corrections bears the burden to rebut the strong presumption in favor of disclosure. Commonwealth v. Chestnut, 250 S.W.3d 655, 2008 Ky. LEXIS 116 (Ky. 2008). Full Details

Winnowing process required of the Department of Corrections by the General Assembly under KRS 197.025 did not rise to the level of an unreasonable burden under KRS 61.872(6), especially in light of the fact that the General Assembly had already mandated that all public agencies had to separate materials exempted from disclosure in a document from materials that were subject to disclosure. The obvious fact that complying with an open records request would have consumed both time and manpower was, standing alone, not sufficiently clear and convincing evidence of an unreasonable burden. Commonwealth v. Chestnut, 250 S.W.3d 655, 2008 Ky. LEXIS 116 (Ky. 2008). Full Details