FREEDOM OF INFORMATION COMMISSION
OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT

            

The above-captioned matter was heard as a contested case on March 21, 2005, at which time the complainant and the respondent appeared, stipulated to certain facts and presented testimony, exhibits and argument on the complaint. 

 

            After consideration of the entire record, the following facts are found and conclusions of law are reached:

 

            1.  The respondent is a public agency within the meaning of §1-200(1), G.S.

 

2.  By letter of complaint received and filed October 29, 2004, the complainant appealed to the Commission, alleging that the respondent violated the Freedom of Information (“FOI”) Act by not complying with her request for records.

 

3.  It is found that by letter dated October 15, 2004, State Senator Andrew Roraback, on behalf of the complainant, his constituent, requested that the respondent permit the complainant to view a file on her daughter located in the respondent’s office.   The complainant’s daughter was a student at the University of Connecticut who had applied to the University of Connecticut Medical School.

 

4.  It is found that, by letter dated November 26, 2004,  the respondent informed the complainant that Assistant Attorney General William N. Kleinman, who handled legal matters relating to the University of Connecticut Health Center, had some documents relating to the complainant’s daughter, including educational records, and also some records that might be protected by the attorney-client privilege.  The respondent requested that the daughter give her consent to the release of the educational records.

 

            5.  It is found that the complainant’s daughter, by letter dated December 11, 2004 to Kleinman, requested he disclose to her all documents he possessed that pertained to her, including any documents that were protected by the attorney-client privilege.

 

6.  It is found that, by letter dated December 16, 2004, Kleinman provided copies of all records responsive to the December 11, 2004 request.  Although he had initially intended to withhold two records as privileged, he provided those records with his December 16, 2004 letter.

 

7.  Section 1-200(5), G.S., provides:

 

    “Public records or files” means any recorded data or information relating to the conduct of the public's business prepared, owned, used, received or retained by a public agency, or to which a public agency is entitled to receive a copy by law or contract under section 1-218, whether such data or information be handwritten, typed, tape-recorded, printed, photostated, photographed or recorded by any other method.

 

8.  Section 1-210(a), G.S., provides in relevant part:

 

    Except as otherwise provided by any federal law or state statute, all records maintained or kept on file by any public agency, whether or not such records are required by any law or by any rule or regulation, shall be public records and every person shall have the right to (1) inspect such records promptly during regular office or business hours, (2) copy such records in accordance with subsection (g) of section 1-212, or (3) receive a copy of such records in accordance with section 1-212. 

 

9.  It is concluded that the records provided to the complainant are public records within the meaning of §§1-200(5) and 1-210(a), G.S.

 

10.  It is found that there are no other public records maintained by the respondent that are responsive to the complainant’s request.

 

11.  No issue of promptness was raised by complainant in either her complaint or her testimony.   Consequently, the Commission lacks evidence from which to determine whether or not the respondent promptly provided the records initially requested through Senator Roraback in his October 15, 2004 letter on behalf of the complainant.  However, it is found that, once Assistant Attorney General Kleinman received a request for the records in his custody, he provided them promptly within the meaning of §1-210(a), G.S.

 

12.  It is concluded that the respondent did not violate §1-210(a), G.S.

13.  At the hearing, the complainant raised many collateral issues regarding whether credits earned at a branch campus of the University of Connecticut had been unjustly deleted from her daughter’s records or transcript, whether an erroneous transcript had been sent to the medical schools to which her daughter applied, whether her daughter did not receive full federal loan funding because she unjustly lost her status as a full-time student, whether her daughter was blacklisted for speaking out about the issue of “branch credits,” whether her daughter’s application to the University of Connecticut Medical School had not been fairly treated, and whether some individual was deliberately sabotaging her daughter academically.  As explained by the hearing officer at the hearing, all these matters are beyond the jurisdiction of the Commission, and are not examined herein.

 

 

The following order by the Commission is hereby recommended on the basis of the record concerning the above-captioned complaint:

 

            1.  The complaint is dismissed.

 

 

Approved by Order of the Freedom of Information Commission at its regular meeting of August 10, 2005.

 

________________________________

Petrea A. Jones

Acting Clerk of the Commission

PURSUANT TO SECTION 4-180(c), G.S., THE FOLLOWING ARE THE NAMES OF EACH PARTY AND THE MOST RECENT MAILING ADDRESS, PROVIDED TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION COMMISSION, OF THE PARTIES OR THEIR AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE.

 

THE PARTIES TO THIS CONTESTED CASE ARE:

 

Addie May L. Nesbitt

PO Box 23

89 North Street

Goshen, CT 06756

 

Richard Blumenthal, Attorney General,

State of Connecticut,

Office of the Attorney General 

c/o Jane D. Comerford, Esq.

Assistant Attorney General

University of Connecticut Health Center

Room LM 043

Farmington, CT 06030-3803

 

 

___________________________________

Petrea A. Jones

Acting Clerk of the Commission

 

 

 

FIC/2004-498FD/paj/8/16/2005