23-ORD-076
March 30, 2023
In re: Lawrence Trageser/Louisville Metro Animal Services
Summary: Louisville Metro Animal Services (“the agency”) did not
violate the Open Records Act (“the Act”) when it denied an imprecise
request for records because it would place an unreasonable burden on
the agency.
Open Records Decision
On January 12, 2023, Lawrence Trageser (“Appellant”) requested an electronic
copy of “[t]he animal licensing documents for all pets, that have been licensed as
required by state and Metro Louisville ordinance(s) through and under the
jurisdictional control of the [agency]” since January 1, 2020, including “those
licensing documents acquired through secondary private entity sales to include
participating veterinarian businesses.” The Appellant further requested “any
responsive record be returned via Excel.”1 If the records were not available in the
format requested by the Appellant, he stated he wished to inspect the records in
person under KRS 61.872(3)(a).
In response, the agency stated it “does not have an existing report that contains
this information” and denied the request “pursuant to KRS 61.872(6) due to the
unreasonable burden and the disruption of the essential functions of the [agency] that
would be caused by this request.” The agency further stated, “The only way to gather
the information requested would be to individually print 90,000 license certificates.
In addition, the owners [sic] name, address, phone number, email and microchip
number would all be exempt pursuant to KRS 61.878(1)(a) due to privacy.”2 Finally,
1
Microsoft Excel is a software program capable of generating digital spreadsheets, tables, and
databases.
2
Private addresses and phone numbers may, in most circumstances, be categorically redacted for
personal privacy reasons under KRS 61.878(1)(a). See Ky. New Era, Inc. v. City of Hopkinsville, 415the agency provided a link to an online “open data” set containing “some of the
information requested.” This appeal followed.
On appeal, the Appellant claims the agency misunderstood his request because
he “sought animal licensing documents NOT [sic] reports for all pets.” He further
claims his request encompassed “documentation that a rabies vaccination has been
acquired.” However, the Appellant made no reference to vaccination certificates in
his request. A person requesting copies of public records by mail must “precisely
describe[ ] the public records which are readily available within the public agency.”
KRS 61.872(3)(b). A reasonable interpretation of a request for “animal licensing
documents” is that the requester seeks documents that license animals. Here, the
agency issues licensing certificates, so a reasonable interpretation of the Appellant’s
request is that he sought those licensing certificates, either by receiving a copy of
them in a specific electronic format or by inspecting them in person.3 The agency did
not violate the Act by not providing vaccine certifications when the Appellant did not
identify these documents in his original request.
Regarding the basis of the agency’s denial, if a request for records “places an
unreasonable burden in producing public records[,] the official custodian may refuse
to permit inspection of the public records or mail copies thereof. However, refusal
under this section shall be sustained by clear and convincing evidence.”
KRS 61.872(6). The agency denied the Appellant’s request as unreasonably
burdensome because it would have had to review and redact “more than 71,000
individual license certificates.” On appeal, the Appellant questions the agency’s claim
that individualized licensing certificates are the only responsive records it possesses.
He claims the agency possesses software or a database that stores specific
information about registered pets, which allows its employees to easily search while
performing their job duties. However, the Appellant did not ask to inspect the
agency’s licensing database. He asked to inspect “[t]he animal licensing documents
for all pets” (emphasis added). The mere fact that he requested such “documents” be
returned to him in a particular format does not mean he precisely described the
record he now claims to want to inspect—a database, which is a separate and distinct
public record. See, e.g., 21-ORD-241.
S.W.3d 76 (Ky. 2013). On appeal, the agency no longer appears to argue that pet owners’ names or
microchip numbers are exempt from disclosure. Furthermore, it appears from the record on appeal
that pet owners’ email addresses do not appear on license certificates. Accordingly, it is not necessary
to determine whether these three categories of information may be redacted from license certificates
under KRS 61.878(1)(a).
3
Other language in the Appellant’s request corroborates this meaning. Specifically, the Appellant
included in his request “those licensing documents acquired through secondary private entity sales to
include participating veterinarian businesses.” Under Louisville Metro Code of Ordinances (LMCO)
§ 91.020(D), a copy of which the Appellant provided, certain “hospitals or clinics of veterinary medicine
located within Jefferson County” are “designate[d] as license facilities” and therefore can issue animal
licenses.Although the Appellant did not request to inspect a database, the agency
explains that data for license certificates are entered in a software platform called
Chameleon, which “is programmed to generate an individual certificate which can be
exported as a PDF and printed for a pet owner” (emphasis in original). However,
“[b]atch exportation of all electronic license certificates is not an available function of
the software.” Furthermore, “if exporting each individual certificate and
electronically redacting each address and phone number took only 20 seconds per
certificate, providing 71,000 responsive records would require 394 hours” of employee
labor. This Office agrees it would be an unreasonable burden for the agency to
manually review and individually redact 71,000 responsive records when such a task
would take an employee almost ten weeks of full-time dedicated work to process one
request. Accordingly, it did not violate the Act by denying the Appellant’s request as
originally framed because it would place an unreasonable burden on the agency.
Even if the Appellant’s request precisely described the records he sought as a
database, the agency argues that providing such a record would pose an unreasonable
burden because “all data fields . . . regarding pet licensing are stored in” the
Chameleon software, which has only “pre-programmed” certain “types of reports that
can be generated, like the licensing certificate.” In addition to the “pre-programmed”
reports generated by the Chameleon software, the agency states the Louisville Metro
Information Technology department has access to the raw data, which it has used
previously to create 15 sortable data sets that “can be exported as comma-separated
values.” Those data sets are publicly available on the Louisville Metro open data hub.
However, none of those data sets include “owner name, address, phone, pet name, [or]
microchip numbers,” which are fields contained in the license certificate. In other
words, the agency maintains an electronic database containing the fields of
information appearing in the animal licensing certificates, but the agency has not
previously used that information to create a record that conforms to the parameters
of the Appellant’s request.
Because the Appellant’s request does not fit “an existing query or report type,”
the agency claims “a new computer query would have to be written in code, run, and
then verified by [the agency] in order to collect a set of licensing data that differs in
content” from the data sets that currently exist and are available on the open data
hub. The agency has not explained on appeal how difficult such a task would be, or
how much it would cost. Regardless, because the Appellant requested an electronic
record tailored to include information only from January 1, 2020 to the date of the
request, and because the agency has not previously created such a record limited by
that date range, the agency has discretion under KRS 61.874(3) to refuse to create a
record specifically tailored to the Appellant’s request. Accordingly, the agency did not
violate the Act by denying the Appellant’s request to create a record tailored to his
requested parameters.In sum, the agency properly interpreted the Appellant’s request as one seeking
all pet licensing certificates, and because such a request resulted in 71,000 responsive
records containing personal information that required redaction, the agency did not
violate the Act by denying the request as unreasonably burdensome under
KRS 61.872(6). Moreover, to the extent the Appellant’s request could be interpreted
as one seeking a database merely because he referenced a particular electronic
format, the agency was not required to generate a custom made database tailored to
the specifications of the Appellant’s request.
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 within 30 days
from the date of this decision. 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 proceedings. The Attorney General will accept notice of
the complaint emailed to OAGAppeals@ky.gov.
Daniel Cameron
Attorney General
s/ Marc Manley
Marc Manley
Assistant Attorney General
#29
Distribution:
Mr. Lawrence Trageser
Alice Lyon, Esq.