Dissell v. Cleveland

Citations

• 2018 Ohio 5444

Syllabus

Core Terms: public record court of claims R.C. 2743.75 R.C. 149.43 database ambiguous overly broad HIPAA protective order opioid dispatch EMS fire police. Overview: Requester sought records documenting EMS, fire, or police units called to respond to opioid related overdose calls. The city dispatch software could not separate opioid calls at the time the request was made, but the city voluntarily provided police dispatch event summaries for all overdose-related calls. The city argued that the entire request could be denied as improperly requiring it to create new records, that the street addresses in EMS and fire dispatch records were exempted by the federal Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and that a court protective order entered eleven months after the request was made prevented it from releasing any overdose records. The special master found that the request was sufficiently specific to require a response containing all overdose dispatch calls. The special master further found that HIPAA did not apply to otherwise non-exempt records. The special master further found that the terms of the protective order did not encompass disclosure pursuant to public records requests, that the city could not rely on any exception not in effect at the time of the request, and that the city did not establish that a protective order could serve as a valid exception to the Public Records Act. The special master recommended that the court order respondent to disclose responsive EMS/Fire CAD event summaries without redaction.