Court Opinion

ID: 9776669
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:41:57.355306+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:41.288004
License: Public Domain

EVANS, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment of the majority, but I would affirm the order of mandamus, as modified by the majority decision, solely *325on the ground that the City refused to supply information which was clearly public under the Open Records Act and Chronicle I.
I disagree with the majority view that the Mayor’s letter requesting an Attorney General’s opinion was not a “proper” request within the meaning of sec. 7(a) of Tex.Rev.Civ.Ann. art. 6252-17a (The Open Records Act), and therefore that the requested information is presumed to be public under that statute. However, this difference of opinion is not of great consequence since, in my opinion, the undisputed evidence compels the conclusion that the City was not entitled to request an Open Records decision, regardless of the interpretation given its request.
As the majority opinion correctly states, the City was entitled to request an Open Records decision if it met two prerequisites: (1) if it considered the requested information to be excepted from disclosure by sec. 3 of the Act; and (2) if there was no prior determination that such information fell within one of the exceptions of sec. 3.
In my opinion, the City failed to establish the first prerequisite because the plain language of the Chronicle’s letter requesting access to such information covered only that specific information which the City knew and now concedes to be public. The City failed to meet the second prerequisite because the prior decision in Chronicle I has finally determined that the requested information was not excepted from disclosure.
In this respect, I also disagree with the conclusion of the majority that the Chronicle waived the issue of res judicata because it did not introduce the actual pleadings and judgment from Chronicle I. In my opinion, the decision in Chronicle I must be given conclusive effect here because the published opinion in that case clearly shows the involvement of identical parties and the disposition of identical issues. The authorities cited in the majority opinion stand for the general proposition that the doctrine of res judicata does not apply unless the judgment in the prior litigation involved and determined issues identical to those being litigated; however, these authorities, as I read them, do not say that in every case the party relying on the doctrine must actually introduce into evidence the judgment entered in the prior case. In the present case, the City conceded that it was bound by the decision in Chronicle I and that the decision in that case declared that the information contained on the “clean” version of its police blotter was public information. In my opinion, the introduction into evidence of the appellate court’s judgment in Chronicle I would have been a needless formality and that act was not a prerequisite to the application of the doctrine of res judicata.
The City seems to argue that the prior adjudication in Chronicle I should no longer be considered binding because of changed circumstances in its procedural handling of the requested information. All of the City’s reasons for refusing the Chronicle’s request relate to information contained in the “processed” copy of the Houston Police Blotter. Both at trial and on appeal, the City attempted to justify its denial of access by arguing that the records containing the requested information had to be screened internally so that nondisclosable information, commingled on the same record with public information, could be withheld. It was the City’s position that the transformation of the “clean” copy of the blotter card, into the “processed” document to be included in an individual’s Personal History and Arrest Record, caused the Chronicle’s request for the “police blotter” to reach nondisclosable information.
The Chronicle’s request did not demand the processed copy of the blotter. Rather, the City voluntarily injected this processed version into the suit, despite the fact that its jail and investigation divisions kept clean versions and that it customarily made such clean versions available to the media.
The Chronicle’s specific request was for: access to the following information maintained by the Houston Police Department:
*326(1) The “Houston Police Blotter” for all dates since June 1, 1982;
* ⅝ * * sfc *
The following information should be contained in the records requested:
(a) The names of all prisoners booked into the Houston City Jail since June 1, 1982;
(b) their ages;
(c) their addresses;
(d) charges filed, if any; and
(e) the dates these persons were in the City Jail.
It is undisputed that the items of information listed in this request are public information, held by Chronicle I not to fall within any exception to disclosure. Under the plain meaning of this request, the Chronicle was asking for disclosure of public information, obtainable from any of the clean versions of the blotter. The City therefore was required by sec. 4 of the Open Records Act promptly to make this information available to any person asking to see it.
The Open Records Act entitles citizens to information and to access to the records containing that information. Nowhere does the Act require a custodian to produce all duplicate versions of that information, as the City implied at trial. The Chronicle’s request clearly distinguishes the information desired from the records believed to contain that information. As custodian of the records in question, the City is in the best position to decide how to make requested public information available, but its discretion is limited, by the Open Records Act, to deciding how best to comply with the request, not whether to comply-
In my opinion, the City was not entitled to refuse the requested information, nor to delay disclosure by applying to the Attorney General for a sec. 7(a) opinion. The City’s duty was simply to find a way to make the information promptly and conveniently available to the citizen requesting it.