Request By:
Mr. W. Walter Hall
Custodian of Records
Fayette County Board of Education
701 East Main Street
Lexington, Kentucky 40502
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
Mr. Michael D. Meuser, attorney for Mr. David Clark, has appealed to the Attorney General under KRS 61.880 your denial of his request to inspect certain public records in your custody. The records are described as follows:
"1. All documents and/or reports relating to the investigation of an incident involving Mr. Clark and student William West on March 29, 1982, and prepared by the Security Office of your institution.
"2. All written statements given to the Security Department, or its employees during the course of their investigation of the above mentioned incident.
"3. Any list, papers, documents or records listing any individuals who may have witnessed the above mentioned incident."
In your letter of April 26, 1982 to Mr. Meuser denying inspection you stated that the described records were compiled by security officers of the Board of Education of Fayette County in connection with the investigation of criminal charges involving Mr. Clark and may be used in a prospective law enforcement action or administrative adjudication before the Board of Education. You based your denial of inspection specifically on KRS 61.878(1)(f) which exempts from the mandatory requirement of public inspection records of law enforcement agencies or agencies involved in administrative adjudication that were compiled in the process of detecting and investigating statutory or regulatory violations if the disclosure of the information would harm the agency by premature release of the information to be used in a prospective law enforcement action or administrative adjudication.
OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
Under the Open Records Law, KRS 61.870-61.884, a public record is either open to public inspection by any person or it may be withheld from inspection by every member of the public under one of the exceptions listed in KRS 61.878(1). This often means that the Open Records Law cannot be used in lieu of discovery procedures provided by the court rules of civil procedure. We believe that such is the case in this appeal.
It is our opinion that you were authorized to deny the request to inspect the described records by the provision you cited, KRS 61.878(1)(f). The inspection of the described records can only be mandatorily required by a requester by order of a court until such time as the enforcement action is completed or a decision is made to take no action. KRS 61.878(1)(f).
As directed by statute, a copy of this opinion is being sent to the requester who has the right to challenge it in court. (KRS 61.880(5).