University Hospital of Louisville has filed a lawsuit in Jefferson County Circuit Court to overturn an open records opinion of Attorney General Jack Conway that the hospital is a public agency under the Kentucky Open Records Act.
The attorney general's opinion issued Oct. 5 declared University Medical Center Inc., which runs the hospital, "was established and created and is controlled by the University of Louisville." The university has argued University Hospital is private and refused to hand over records requested by the ACLU of Kentucky and The Courier-Journal.
Conway's ruling could affect the proposed merger between the hospital, Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare and Lexington-based St. Joseph Health System. If the court upholds the attorney general's opinion, the state will have a say in the merger. The ruling means the documents pertaining to the merger itself would have to be made public.
Because it deals with an open-records issue, Conway's opinion has the force of law unless overturned in court, which resulted in the hospital's lawsuit.
According to the Courier-Journal, University Hospital is Louisville's safety-net hospital for the poor. It received $61 million from the state and $7 million from the city for indigent care last year.
The lawsuit argues that the hospital is a private, nonprofit corporation because it is controlled by a board of directors, not the University of Louisville.
For more information, read the Courier-Journal's story. Read the Open Government Blog entry about Attorney General Conway's opinion here.
Showing posts with label Courier-Journal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Courier-Journal. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
Newspapers push fight against state cabinet
The state's two largest newspapers wasted no time in pushing their case for a judicial order forcing the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to provide records about the deaths or abuse of children under the cabinet's supervision.
The Courier-Journal and the Herald-Leader filed a motion in Franklin Circuit Court asking Judge Phillip Shepherd to order the cabinet to release the records after U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves on June 1 denied the cabinet's motion to move the issue to federal court.
The motion filed by the newspapers asks Judge Shepherd to order the records to be made public, records similar to those the judge declared were public records in May 2010. They also ask that the court nullify emergency orders the cabinet issued to try to circumvent the judge's ruling. Rather than appealing Judge Shepherd's decision ordering the release of some records, the cabinet wrote orders to limit what records it will release concerning the death or abuse of a child under the cabinet's protection.
In December Courier-Journal reporter Deborah Yetter filed an open records request for records related to the deaths of two children under the cabinet's supervision. The cabinet told Yetter it needed 30 days to determine whether the records she sought existed even though the state's Open Records Act gives an agency three days to make that determination. In January, Herald-Leader reporter Bill Estep made a request for records relating to the death of any child under the cabinet's supervision that had died during Fiscal Year 2010, and the cabinet denied Estep's request as being burdensome.
At that point the newspapers filed suit again. The cabinet responded by trying to move the case to federal court, a move that failed.
The Courier-Journal and the Herald-Leader filed a motion in Franklin Circuit Court asking Judge Phillip Shepherd to order the cabinet to release the records after U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves on June 1 denied the cabinet's motion to move the issue to federal court.
The motion filed by the newspapers asks Judge Shepherd to order the records to be made public, records similar to those the judge declared were public records in May 2010. They also ask that the court nullify emergency orders the cabinet issued to try to circumvent the judge's ruling. Rather than appealing Judge Shepherd's decision ordering the release of some records, the cabinet wrote orders to limit what records it will release concerning the death or abuse of a child under the cabinet's protection.
In December Courier-Journal reporter Deborah Yetter filed an open records request for records related to the deaths of two children under the cabinet's supervision. The cabinet told Yetter it needed 30 days to determine whether the records she sought existed even though the state's Open Records Act gives an agency three days to make that determination. In January, Herald-Leader reporter Bill Estep made a request for records relating to the death of any child under the cabinet's supervision that had died during Fiscal Year 2010, and the cabinet denied Estep's request as being burdensome.
At that point the newspapers filed suit again. The cabinet responded by trying to move the case to federal court, a move that failed.
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