Opinion ID: 2467190
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Application of Defendants Industrial Accident Board et al.

Text: By their application the defendants assert several arguments contending that some or all of the information requested by the Foundation is not required by the Act to be disclosed. First, defendants contend that the information is not within Section 3(a)'s definition of public information when read in light of the legislative purpose enunciated in Section 1. Second, defendants contend that the information is excepted from disclosure by Section 3(a)(1) because it is deemed confidential under Board Rule 9.040 which defendants contend has the force and effect of a statute. Third, defendants assert that all claims filed with the Board prior to June 14, 1973, the effective date of the Act, are not covered thereby because those filing claims before that date relied upon Board Rule 9.040 to assure that their claims would be confidential. Fourth, defendants argue that the information is confidential under the federal constitutional right of privacy. Fifth, defendants argue that the information is deemed confidential by a common-law right of privacy. Finally, defendants urge that some of the compensation claims contain uniquely personal information, disclosure of which would violate the claimant's right to privacy, either constitutional or common-law. We shall consider each of these arguments in order. A. First, defendants assert that, although compensation claims may arguably come within the Act's definition of public information [a]ll information collected, assembled, or maintained by governmental bodies pursuant to law or ordinance or in connection with the transaction of official business the definition should not be read so broadly as to include the identity of individual claimants in light of the legislative purpose announced in Section 1. Defendants point out that the language of Section 1 declares it the policy of the Act to make available full and complete information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of those who represent them as public officials and employees. Defendants contend that the names of individual claimants do not constitute affairs of government or official acts of public officials, and therefore their disclosure would not further the legislative purpose announced in Section 1. Any other construction, defendants argue, would lead to the inconsistent result of requiring disclosure of the affairs of private citizens under an act intended to require disclosure of the affairs and workings of their government. Defendants' argument is not without merit. Especially since the rapid expansion of government in recent years, many government records necessarily contain information relating to and identifying individual citizens and their activities. While the recent expansion of government has accented the need to assure access by private citizens to government records as an assurance that the people may remain informed about the activities of those who represent them, [7] the tremendous increase in the amount of information obtained and retained by the government has given rise to concern about the potential abuses which unlimited access to this information may foster. [8] The public's right to be informed about the affairs of government may thus conflict with the right of the individual to control access to information concerning his own affairs. [9] The balance between these two competing interests has not yet been struck with clarity, and the nature and extent of each interest is yet to be satisfactorily determined. We believe, however, that, except in unusual circumstances, the task of balancing these interests must be left to the Legislature. In the Open Records Act the Legislature has addressed the problem of access to government records. Although some provision has been made for safeguarding the privacy of the individual (see Section 3(a)(1), (2), (9), and (10)), the Act makes clear that it must be liberally construed in favor of the granting of any request for information. Section 14(d). Moreover, the disclosure of individual names in government records may in some instances be essential to the expressed purpose of effectively allowing the public to police the actions of their government. Viewed in light of the statute as a whole, we are convinced that the definition of public information in Section 3(a) encompasses the information sought by the Foundation, including the name of the claimant. The information must therefore be disclosed unless it is excluded by one of the specific exceptions of Section 3(a). B. Defendants next contend that Board Rule 9.040 has the effect of excepting the requested information from mandatory disclosure under the Act. Rule 9.040, [10] which was promulgated by the Board in 1961 pursuant to its general rule-making authority, [11] allows access to information on a claimant only to the claimant or his attorney, the insurer, the employer, or third party litigants, and only if there is an open claim before the Board or a court at the time the information is requested. Defendants argue that this rule has the force of statute, and that the information is therefore excepted from the Act by Section 3(a)(1), which excludes information deemed confidential by statute. Many statutes make various records kept by state agencies confidential. See, e.g., Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 695j-1, § 10 (Supp. 1975-1976); art. 5547-12a (Supp.1975-1976); and art. 4445c, § 4 (Supp. 1974). It is clear that the records covered by these statutes fall within Section 3(a)(1)'s exception for records made confidential by statute. No such statute appears, however, in the Workmen's Compensation Act. [12] While a rule may have the force and effect of a statute in other contexts, we do not believe that a governmental agency may bring its information within exception 3(a)(1) by the promulgation of a rule. To imply such authority merely from general rule-making powers would be to allow the agency to circumvent the very purpose of the Open Records Act. [13] Absent a more specific grant of authority from the Legislature to make such a rule, [14] the rule must yield to the statute. C. Defendants argue that, even if the Board has no power to restrict access to records which are required to be disclosed by the Act, the Board certainly had such power prior to the Act's effective date. Since those filing claims prior to the Act did so while the Rule was in effect, defendants argue that all information concerning claims filed prior to the Act's effective date should remain confidential. We disagree. First, it is clear that the Act is intended to apply to all records kept by governmental bodies, whether acquired before or after the Act's effective date. No exception is made for records which were considered confidential prior to June 14, 1973. Second, we do not believe that information should be excepted from disclosure merely because the individual furnishing such information did so with the expectation that access to the information would be restricted. The Legislature has not, by determining that government information formerly kept confidential should be disclosed, impaired any vested right of a claimant to the confidentiality of the information. [15] Unless there is such an impingement upon a vested right, the Legislature may require disclosure of information even though it was deemed confidential by an agency rule prior to the effective date of the Act. [16] We therefore conclude that the Board may not withhold information required to be disclosed by the Act, whether acquired prior to the Act's effective date or thereafter, based upon its own Rule 9.040. D. We next turn to defendants' argument that the requested information is protected from disclosure by a constitutional right of privacy. Section 3(a)(1) excepts from disclosure information deemed confidential by constitutional law. Defendants contend that the right of privacy recently recognized by the United States Supreme Court as emanating from the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action ... [17] extends to all the information in its claims records and prohibits disclosure of that information to the public. The Foundation asserts by counterpoint that the defendants have no standing to assert this argument, contending that a state agency cannot be heard to assert the constitutional rights of individual claimants. Whatever merit the Foundation's argument might have absent the Act, it is clear that the Legislature has, in effect, granted standing to a governmental unit to assert that its records are protected by a constitutional right of privacy. The governmental unit may request an Attorney General's opinion to determine whether requested information is excepted by Section 3(a)(1), thus effectively raising the constitutional issue. Certainly the agency is not foreclosed, as defendant in a suit to force disclosure, from challenging the Attorney General's conclusion that information is not excluded by the first exception. Furthermore, under Section 10(b), one who discloses information deemed confidential may be subject to fine or imprisonment. We hold that defendants have standing to assert the constitutional right of privacy of claimants whose files are in their custody. We must determine, therefore, whether any of the information requested by the Foundation is protected by the constitutional right of privacy. The United States Supreme Court reviewed its earlier decisions in this area in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 152-53, 93 S.Ct. 705, 726, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973): The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however, going back perhaps as far as Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251, 11 S.Ct. 1000, 1001, 35 L.Ed. 734 (1891), the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. In varying contexts, the Court or individual Justices have, indeed, found at least the roots of that right in the First Amendment, Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 564, 89 S.Ct. 1243, 1247, 22 L.Ed.2d 542 (1969); in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 8-9, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1872-1873, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 350, 88 S.Ct. 507, 510, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967), Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 6 S.Ct. 524, 29 L.Ed. 746 (1886), see Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478, 48 S.Ct. 564, 572, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting); in the penumbras of the Bill of Rights, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S., at 484-485, 85 S.Ct. [1678] at 1681-1682; in the Ninth Amendment, Id., at 486, 85 S.Ct. [1678] at 1682 (Goldberg, J., concurring); or in the concept of liberty guaranteed by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, see Mayer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399, 43 S.Ct. 625, 626, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923). These decisions make it clear that only personal rights that can be deemed fundamental or implicit in the concept of ordered liberty, Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325, 58 S.Ct. 149, 152, 82 L.Ed. 288 (1937), are included in this guarantee of personal privacy. They also make it clear that the right has some extension to activities relating to marriage, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 12, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 1823, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1967); procreation, Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541-542, 62 S.Ct. 1110, 1113-1114, 86 L.Ed. 1655 (1942); contraception, Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S., at 453-454, 92 S.Ct. [1029] at 1038-1039, 31 L.Ed.2d 349; Id., at 460, 463-465, 92 S.Ct. [1029] at 1042, 1043-1044 (White, J., concurring in result); family relationships, Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166, 64 S.Ct. 438, 442, 88 L.Ed. 645 (1944); and child rearing and education, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 535, 45 S.Ct, 571, 573, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925), Meyer v. Nebraska, supra. It is apparent from the above that the term right of privacy is actually a generic term encompassing various rights recognized by the Court to be inherent in the concept of ordered liberty. To date the Court has not delineated any comprehensive definition of the right. It is apparent, however, that the fundamental rights thus for recognized by the Court as deserving protection from governmental interference have been limited to intimate personal relationships or activities, freedoms of the individual to make fundamental choices involving himself, his family, and his relationships with others. It is also apparent that the right of privacy is primarily a restraint upon unwarranted governmental interference or intrusion into those areas deemed to be within the protected zones of privacy. Several commentators have suggested that the right of privacy protected by the U.S. Constitution actually has two meanings: first, the ability of individuals to determine for themselves whether to undergo certain experiences or to perform certain acts autonomy ; and second, the ability of individuals to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others [18] the right to control information, or disclosural privacy. The Supreme Court has not distinguished between these two areas of privacy, but the distinction is useful in discussing the concept, especially in light of the problem now before us. Most privacy cases decided by the Supreme Court to date have concerned autonomy. Little has been said of the constitutional dimensions of disclosural privacy, which is the right asserted by defendants here. We believe, nevertheless, that effective protection of the fundamental zones of privacy thus far outlined by the Supreme Court necessarily implies a concomitant right to prevent unlimited disclosure of information held by the government which, although collected pursuant to a valid governmental objective, pertains to activities and experiences within those zones of privacy. The individual does not forfeit all right to control access to intimate facts concerning his personal life merely because the State has a legitimate interest in obtaining that information. Just as the State's intrusion into the individual's zones of privacy must be carefully limited, so must the State's right to reveal private information be closely scrutinized as well. [19] It is also clear, however, that not every publication of intimate or embarrassing information about an individual constitutes an invasion of a constitutionally protected zone of privacy. In the case of Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 96 S.Ct. 1155, 47 L.Ed.2d 405, 44 U.S.L.W. 4337 (1976), recently decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, plaintiff's name and photograph were included in a flyer of active shoplifters distributed to local merchants by the police chief of Louisville, Kentucky, after plaintiff had been arrested on a shoplifting charge. The charge was subsequently dismissed, and plaintiff sued the police chief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging, inter alia, that the police chief had invaded his constitutional right of privacy while acting under color of State law. The Court denied that plaintiff had stated a cause of action: While there is no right of privacy found in any specific guarantee of the Constitution, the Court has recognized that zones of privacy may be created by more specific constitutional guarantees and thereby impose limits upon government power. See Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 152-153, 93 S.Ct. 705, 726, 35 L.Ed.2d 147, 176-178 (1973). Respondent's case, however, comes within none of these areas. He does not seek to suppress evidence seized in the course of an unreasonable search. See Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351, 88 S.Ct. 507, 511, 19 L.Ed.2d 576, 581 (1967); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 8-9, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1872-1973, 20 L.Ed.2d 889, 898 (1968). And our other right of privacy cases, while defying categorical description, deal generally with substantive aspects of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Roe the Court pointed out that the personal rights found in this guarantee of personal privacy must be limited to those which are fundamental or implicit in the concept of ordered liberty as described in Palko v. Connecticut, 301 U.S. 319, 325, 58 S.Ct. 149, 152, 82 L.Ed. 288, 292 (1937). The activities detailed as being within this definition were ones very different from that for which respondent claims constitutional protectionmatters relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, and child rearing and education. In these areas it has been held that there are limitations on the States' power to substantively regulate conduct. Respondent's claim is far afield from this line of decisions. He claims constitutional protection against the disclosure of the fact of his arrest on a shoplifting charge. His claim is based not upon any challenge to the State's ability to restrict his freedom of action in a sphere contended to be private, but instead on a claim that the State may not publicize a record of an official act such as an arrest. None of our substantive privacy decisions hold this or anything like this, and we decline to enlarge them in this manner. Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. at 713, 96 S.Ct. at 1166, 44 U.S.L.W. at 4343 (1976). See also Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1, 92 S.Ct. 2318, 33 L.Ed.2d 154 (1972); Rosenberg v. Martin, 478 F.2d 520 (2nd Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 872, 94 S.Ct. 102, 38 L.Ed.2d 90 (1973); Thom v. New York Stock Exchange, 306 F.Supp. 1002 (S.D.N. Y.1969), affirmed sub nom. Miller v. NYSE, 425 F.2d 1074 (2nd Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 398 U.S. 905, 90 S.Ct. 1696, 26 L.Ed.2d 64 (1970); Lamont v. Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, 269 F.Supp. 880 (S.D.N.Y.1967), affirmed, 386 F.2d 449 (2nd Cir. 1967), cert. denied, 391 U.S. 915, 88 S.Ct. 1811, 20 L.Ed.2d 654 (1968); and Fifth Avenue Peace Parade Committee v. Gray, 480 F.2d 326 (2nd Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 948, 94 S.Ct. 1469, 39 L.Ed.2d 563 (1974). Compare York v. Story, 324 F.2d 450 (9th Cir. 1963), cert. denied, 376 U.S. 939, 84 S.Ct. 794, 11 L.Ed.2d 659 (1964); Merriken v. Cressman, 364 F.Supp. 913 (E.D.Pa.1973). Thus, the State's right to make available for public inspection information pertaining to an individual does not conflict with the individual's constitutional right of privacy unless the State's action restricts his freedom in a sphere recognized to be within a zone of privacy protected by the Constitution. We turn now to an examination of the information sought by the Foundation to determine whether that information is within a zone of privacy. The data requested identifies the claimant, the nature of his injuries, his employer and his attorney. The information normally does not concern matter relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, or child rearing and education, nor would its publication infringe upon a claimant's right of free association. Even though a workman's knowledge that information concerning his claim will be available for public inspection may deter him from exercising his statutory right to file a claim, the general availability of such information would not adversely affect any right thus far recognized to be within a constitutionally protected zone of privacy. We therefore hold that the information requested by the Foundation is not excepted by Section 3(a)(1) as information deemed confidential by constitutional law. E. Defendants next contend that the requested information is deemed confidential... by judicial decision under Section 3(a)(1). Defendants assert that by this provision the Legislature intended to delegate to the courts a duty to determine what information should be excepted from disclosure as confidential by balancing in each case the interest in privacy against the interest in disclosure, thus creating a common-law privacy doctrine which would except the information involved by judicial decision. As authority for this proposition defendants cite the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552 (1967), as amended, (Supp.1975-1976), which is in many ways similar to Texas' Open Records Act. Section 552(b) of the Federal Act sets out the matters which are excepted from application of the Act. Exception 6 provides that the Act does not apply to personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy; ... Federal courts have interpreted the term similar files broadly, to include any files which contain `intimate details' of a `highly personal nature.' Robles v. Environmental Protection Agency, 484 F.2d 843, 845 (4th Cir.1973). The Supreme Court has recently construed this exemption to mean that Congress intended the courts to balance the individual's right of privacy against the preservation of the basic purpose of the Freedom of Information Act `to open agency action to the light of public scrutiny.' Rose v. Department of the Air Force, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 96 S.Ct. 1592, 1604, 48 L.Ed. 11, 44 U.S.L.W. 4503, 4509 (U.S. April 21, 1976). See also Getman v. National Labor Relations Board, 146 U.S. App.D.C. 209, 450 F.2d 670, 677 (1971); Wine Hobby USA, Inc. v. International Revenue Service, 502 F.2d 133, 136 (3d Cir. 1974). [20] Defendants urge us to apply a similar balancing test to determine whether information is confidential ... by judicial decision under the Open Records Act. We do not believe that the interpretation proposed by defendants is reasonable. Although the Open Records Act is similar in many ways to the Freedom of Information Act, our State law contains no exception comparable to exception 6 of the federal act. Section 3(a)(2) of the Open Records Act does except information in personnel files, the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. There is no such exception, however, for medical files, or for files similar to medical or personnel files, as is found in exception 6 of the federal act. Absent such a provision, we do not believe that a court is free to balance the public's interest in disclosure against the harm resulting to an individual by reason of such disclosure. This policy determination was made by the Legislature when it enacted the statute. All information collected, assembled, or maintained by governmental bodies is subject to disclosure unless specifically excepted. We decline to adopt an interpretation which would allow the court in its discretion to deny disclosure even though there is no specific exception provided. F. Defendants next contend that the information sought by the Foundation is confidential by judicial decision by reason of this Court's opinion in Billings v. Atkinson, 489 S.W.2d 858 (Tex.1973). In that decision we recognized that an unwarranted invasion of the right of privacy constitutes a legal injury for which a remedy will be granted. 489 S.W.2d at 860. We there upheld a jury verdict awarding Mr. Billings damages for the unauthorized installation of a wiretap device on his telephone by Mr. Atkinson. We stated, at 489 S.W.2d at 859: The right of privacy has been defined as the right of an individual to be left alone, to live a life of seclusion, to be free from unwarranted publicity. 77 C.J.S. Right of Privacy § 1. A judicially approved definition of the right of privacy is that it is the right to be free from the unwarranted appropriation or exploitation of one's personality, the publicizing of one's private affairs with which the public has no legitimate concern, or the wrongful intrusion into one's private activities in such manner as to outrage or cause mental suffering, shame or humiliation to a person of ordinary sensibilities. 62 Am.Jur.2d, Privacy § 1, p. 677, and cases cited. The above statement of the Court reveals that the tort invasion of privacy is actually a recognition of several privacy interests considered to be deserving of protection. Professor William L. Prosser has categorized these interests into four distinct torts, each subject to different rules: 1. Intrusion upon the plaintiff's seclusion or solitude, or into his private affairs. 2. Public disclosure of embarrassing private facts about the plaintiff. 3. Publicity which places the plaintiff in a false light in the public eye. 4. Appropriation, for the defendant's advantage, of the plaintiff's name or likeness. William L. Prosser, Privacy, 48 Cal.L.Rev. 383, 389 (1960). The interest recognized as deserving protection in Billings was the first listed above, freedom from unwarranted intrusion. The interest asserted by defendants on behalf of claimants most closely resembles the interest defined by Prosser as freedom from public disclosure of embarrassing private facts. Defendants contend that making the requested information available for public inspection would constitute public disclosure of private facts about individual claimants, and that the information must therefore be confidential by reason of the common-law right of the claimants to recover damages for the wrongful publication of the information. We recognized in Billings, supra, that an individual has the right to be free from the publicizing of one's private affairs with which the public has no legitimate concern, but the precise requirements for showing an invasion of this particular right of privacy have not yet been defined by the courts of this State. It is generally recognized, however, that an injured party, in order to recover for public disclosure of private facts about himself, must show (1) that publicity was given to matters concerning his private life, (2) the publication of which would be highly offensive to a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities, and (3) that the matter publicized is not of legitimate public concern. See W. Prosser, Law of Torts § 117, p. 809 (4th ed. 1971) and cases there cited. [21] Defendants assert that, if a governmental unit's action in making its records available to the general public would be an invasion of an individual's freedom from the publicizing of his private affairs, then the information in those records should be deemed confidential by judicial decision under Section 3(a)(1) of the Act. We agree. Webster's Third International Dictionary defines confidential as known only to a limited few: not publicly disseminated: PRIVATE, SECRET. These are precisely the characteristics which information protected by this branch of the tort invasion of privacy must have. And, we believe that it is this type of information which the Legislature intended to exempt from mandatory disclosure under Section 3(a)(1) of the Act. We must decide, therefore, whether any of the information requested by the Foundation is private within the meaning of the tort law, and whether the Board's action in making the information available to the public would constitute a wrongful publicizing of such information and thus an invasion of a claimant's right of privacy. The first requirement for wrongful publication of private information is that the information contain highly intimate or embarrassing facts about a person's private affairs, such that its publication would be highly objectionable to a person of ordinary sensibilities. Defendant Jerry Belcher, the Executive Director of the Industrial Accident Board and custodian of its records, filed an affidavit in the trial court in opposition to the Foundation's motion for summary judgment, in which he alleged that many of the claims filed with the Board contain matters of extreme privacy which, if released, would cause extreme embarrassment to the injured claimant. Belcher cited examples of such claims, including a claim for injuries arising from a sexual assault of a female clerk following an armed robbery; a claim on behalf of illegitimate children for benefits following their father's death; a teacher's claim for expenses of a pregnancy resulting from the failure of a contraceptive device; claims for psychiatric treatment of mental disorders following workrelated injuries; claims for injuries to sexual organs, and for injuries stemming from an attempted suicide; and claims of disability caused by physical or mental abuse by co-employees or supervisors. Belcher alleged that [m]any of these claims by their nature and the wording of the claim involve highly private matters which, if divulged to the public-at-large, would result in the violation of individual claimant's and others right of privacy. The claims referred to by Mr. Belcher are not in the record before us. Nevertheless, if there are in fact claims containing such information, as Mr. Belcher has alleged (and in reviewing the trial court's summary judgment we must accept as true all allegations of the opposing party), we are satisfied that at least some of these claims are of such a nature that their publication would be highly offensive to a reasonable person. This criterion is therefore satisfied at least as to some information contained in claims in the custody of Mr. Belcher. Invasion of the privacy interest protected by this branch of the tort also requires that publicity be given to the private affairs of the individual. Would making claim files available for public inspection constitution such publicity? It is generally agreed that the publicity requirement of this tort is not synonymous with the publication requirement of the law of defamation, wherein publication to one other is sufficient to constitute defamation. Publicity requires communication to more than a small group of persons; the matter must be communicated to the public at large, such that the matter becomes one of public knowledge. [22] It may be argued that the mere placing of private matter in a record available for public inspection does not give publicity to such matter, since the matter is not thereby communicated to anyone, much less to the public at large. No publicity would occur, according to this argument, unless a citizen examined the public record and communicated the information therein to a large number of people. It would necessarily follow that no privacy interest is invaded merely by making private information available for public inspection. The requirement of publicity, however, must be considered in light of the people's right to publicize information which is a matter of public record without fear of sanctions imposed by the State. Once information is made a matter of public record, the protection accorded freedom of speech and press by the First Amendment may prohibit recovery for injuries caused by any further disclosure of and publicity given to such information, at least if the information is at all newsworthy. In Cox Broadcasting Co. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469, 95 S.Ct. 1029, 43 L.Ed.2d 328 (1975), the Supreme Court held that the First and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the State from imposing sanctions for the publication of information contained in official court records available for public inspection. The Court stated, at 420 U.S. 495-496, 95 S.Ct. at 1046: By placing the information in the public domain on official court records, the State must be presumed to have concluded that the public interest was thereby being served. Public records by their very nature are of interest to those concerned with the administration of government, and a public benefit is performed by the reporting of the true contents of the records by the media. The freedom of the press to publish that information appears to us to be of critical importance to our type of government in which the citizenry is the final judge of the proper conduct of public business. In preserving that form of government the First and Fourteenth Amendments command nothing less than that the States may not impose sanctions on the publication of truthful information contained in official court records open to public inspection.       ... If there are privacy interests to be protected in judicial proceedings, the States must respond by means which avoid public documentation or other exposure of private information. Their political institutions must weigh the interests in privacy with the interests of the public to know and of the press to publish. The Court thus held that the State may not protect an individual's privacy interests by recognizing a cause of action in tort for giving publicity to highly private facts, if those facts are a matter of public record. It therefore appears that, if the State wishes to protect a citizen's privacy interest in matters recorded in documents kept by the State, it must do so by restricting the availability of those documents to the public rather than by imposing sanctions on those who would publicize such matters to which they have a right of access. In order to protect the individual's privacy interest in information compiled in government records, it must be assumed that for purposes of Section 3(a)(1) of the Act, when a governmental unit makes information in its files available for public inspection, the information is sufficiently publicized to invoke the protection accorded such matters by the tort law. To hold otherwise would be to deny an individual any protectable privacy interest in private information disclosed to a governmental unit, if such information would otherwise be public information. The last requirement for an actionable invasion of privacy is that the information publicized not be of legitimate concern to the public. This requirement is necessarily one which can only be considered in the context of each particular case, considering the nature of the information and the public's legitimate interest in its disclosure. While the Open Records Act has declared the policy of this State to be that all public information kept by government is of legitimate public concern, the Legislature has also recognized in Section 3(a)(1) that, in some instances, the individual's interest in confidentiality may outweigh the public's interest in disclosure. There may be circumstances in which the special nature of the information makes it of legitimate concern to the public even though the information is of a highly private and embarrassing nature. In general, however, the public will have no legitimate interest in such highly private facts about private citizens. Unles, therefore, the person requesting information of such a nature from the governmental unit can show special circumstances which make such private facts a matter of legitimate public concern, we believe that the information should be excepted from the mandatory disclosure provisions of the Act as information deemed confidential by a common-law right of privacy under Section 3(a)(1). We should make clear that the particular interest of the requestor, and the purposes for which he seeks the information, are not to be considered in determining whether the matter requested is of legitimate concern to the public, except insofar as the requestor's interest in the information is the same as that of the public at large. As we have stated above, the Act makes clear that the motives of the individual requestor are not relevant to the determination of whether the matter requested is public information. The Foundation contends that, by disclosing the facts of their claim to the Board, claimants have waived or forfeited any right of privacy which they might have had in such information. We disagree. We stated above that an individual does not forfeit all right to maintain the confidentiality of his personal affairs merely because he has disclosed facts about those affairs to a unit of government. Although voluntary disclosure of private information would generally constitute a waiver of the individual's privacy interest in that information, the voluntariness of the disclosure should be viewed in light of the circumstances under which the disclosure is made. Much information is disclosed to the government as a prerequisite to the receipt of government benefits which are of such importance to the recipient that the disclosure of private information incident thereto may hardly be considered voluntary. We cannot say that an injured workman impliedly consents to the government's publication of private information about his injury merely by filing his claim for compensation with the Board; nor do we believe that the acceptance of compensation benefits should necessarily be contingent upon a waiver of the claimant's right to assert the privacy of such information, absent some expressed legislative intent to that effect. We decline to hold that claimants have waived any legally protected right of privacy in information contained in their claim files by filing them with the Board. To summarize: information contained in workmen's compensation claim files is excepted from mandatory disclosure under Section 3(a)(1) as information deemed confidential by law if (1) the information contains highly intimate or embarrassing facts the publication of which would be highly objectionable to a reasonable person, and (2) the information is not of legitimate concern to the public. If the information meets the first test, it will be presumed that the information is not of legitimate public concern unless the requestor can show that, under the particular circumstances of the case, the public has a legitimate interest in the information notwithstanding its private nature. Since it appears that the trial court has not considered the individual files which defendants allege are private, and since it clearly appears that some of these files may contain personal information the publication of which would be highly objectionable to a reasonable person, it follows that the trial court's summary judgment for the Foundation was improper. We therefore remand the case to the trial court for its determination, in light of this opinion, whether any of the information should be withheld from disclosure because confidential. For the guidance of the trial court, we consider it appropriate to make some further observations concerning the information requested and the procedure for its review. The Foundation has requested the name of each claimant, the nature of his injuries, and the names of his employer and his attorney. It is evident that any highly personal information in these files will in most cases refer to the nature of the injury sustained. If the nature of a particular claim is held to be confidential, only that information need by withheld from disclosure. As we have already stated, there is nothing intimate or embarrassing about the fact, in and of itself, that an individual has filed a claim for benefits. The claimant's name may therefore normally be disclosed, as may other information in the claimant's file which does not itself reveal private facts, even though information concerning the nature of his injury is withheld. In reviewing the information which defendants assert is exempt from disclosure, the trial court should follow the same procedure which the Act dictates for submitting claimed exemptions to the Attorney General. Section 7(b) provides that [t]he specific information requested shall be supplied to the attorney general but shall not be disclosed until a final determination has been made. Similarly, the claims containing allegedly private information should be supplied to the trial court for an in camera inspection and determination whether and to what extent information should be deleted from those files. We believe that this procedure will best protect the privacy interests of the individual, and at the same time will effectively protect the public's right to inspect public records. We recognize that the individual claimant's identity is the primary item of information which the Board wishes to keep confidential under Section 3(a)(1) of the Act, because of its allegation that the Foundation intends to use the information to discriminate against claimants. Our conclusion, however, is that the Act prohibits consideration of the motives of the requesting party in determining whether information must be disclosed. The sole criteria for determining whether information is except from disclosure as confidential by judicial decision are whether the information is of legitimate public concern and whether its publication would be highly objectionable to a reasonable person. If the Legislature intended that other criteria be considered in deciding whether information is open to inspectionif it desires to change to wording of the statuteit will have an early opportunity to do so at the convening of the next legislative session. The duty of this Court is to enforce the legislative intent as written. We also recognize the enormity of the task which a case-by-case review of these workmen's compensation files may entail. We believe, nevertheless, that the effective protection of the individual's right of privacy, and the effective application of the policy of openness of government records mandated by the Open Records Act, necessitate the result which we have reached. The individual's right to maintain some degree of privacy in the affairs of his personal life must not be forgotten in the effort to maintain the openness of governmental activities. Even in the complex and closely regulated bureaucracy of today's society, the individual's right of privacy and the people's right to be informed may exist, if not in harmony, at least without irreconcilable conflict.