Request By:
Rose Ashcraft, Esq.
Assistant Counsel
Kentucky Labor Cabinet
The 127 Building
U.S. Highway 127 South
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; Thomas R. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General
Ms. Barbara M. Parrish has appealed to the Attorney General pursuant to KRS 61.880 your denial of the request of William R. Kenealy, Esq. to inspect certain public records in your custody. Ms. Parrish is a paralegal in the law firm with which Mr. Kenealy is associated. She requests that she be allowed to obtain a copy of the preliminary worknotes of the Labor Cabinet's investigating officer. Mr. Kenealy had requested a copy of the complete file of the Labor Cabinet's investigation of a firm known as "TV Specialist."
In your letter of May 17, 1985 to Mr. Kenealy you advised him that you would furnish him with a copy of the Report of Inspection. Other than that report the file in question contains only the investigating officer's worknotes which you maintain are exempt from public inspection pursuant to KRS 61.878(1)(g) and (h).
Opinion of the Attorney General
It is the opinion of the Attorney General that you acted in conformity with the Open Records Law, KRS 61.870 to KRS 61.884, in denying access to those records in the file of the investigative officer consisting of that officer's worknotes.
Among the public records excluded from the application of the Open Records Act and subject to inspection only upon an order of a court of competent jurisdiction are the following classifications set forth in KRS 61.878(1)(g) and (h):
"(g) Preliminary drafts, notes, correspondence with private individuals, other than correspondence which is intended to give notice of final action of a public agency;
"(h) Preliminary recommendations, and preliminary memoranda in which opinions are expressed or policies formulated or recommended;"
In OAG 85-58, copy enclosed, we considered a request to inspect all materials contained in an occupational safety and health investigative file of the state Labor Cabinet with respect to a particular place of employment. In connection with the compliance officer's worknotes we said that where those worknotes are compiled in the ordinary course of an investigation of an employer's worksite, and contain preliminary handwritten drafts of possible citations and correspondence with private persons which are not intended to give notice of final action, the material is preliminary and the exemption set forth in KRS 61.878(1)(g) applies. Furthermore, work papers and intraoffice memoranda are exempt from public inspection under KRS 61.878(1)(h). Therefore, worknotes containing a compliance officer's hand-drawn diagrams of the worksite or work operations and his observations, opinions and preliminary drafts of possible violations are exempt from public inspection by KRS 61.878(1)(h). See also OAG 84-365 and OAG 84-361, copies of which are enclosed.
Thus, it is the opinion of this Office that your denial of the request to inspect those records in the file of the Labor Cabinet's investigative officer consisting of that officer's worknotes was proper as such material is exempt from public inspection, in the absence of a court order, pursuant to KRS 61.878(1)(g) and (h).
As required by statute, a copy of this opinion is being sent to the requesting party who has the right to challenge it in court pursuant to KRS 61.880(5) .