Hatch v. Town of Middletown

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit

No. 02-1053

RICHARD HATCH, JR.,

Plaintiff, Appellant,

v.

TOWN OF MIDDLETOWN;
FINANCE DIRECTOR FOR THE TOWN OF MIDDLETOWN;
SHAWN J. BROWN; FRANK KLUTH;
BARRY SMITH; and DAVID LEONARD,

Defendants, Appellees.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND

[Hon. Ernest C. Torres, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Torruella, Circuit Judge,
B. Fletcher,* Senior Circuit Judge,
and Lipez, Circuit Judge.

Joseph R. Palumbo, Jr. for appellant.

Marc DeSisto, with whom Kathleen M. Powers was on brief for
appellees.

November 19, 2002

____________________
* Hon. Betty B. Fletcher, of the Ninth Circuit, sitting by
designation.
 LIPEZ, Circuit Judge. On April 27, 2000, Plaintiff

Richard Hatch was arrested by the Middletown, Rhode Island police

department and charged with assaulting his adopted son ("John

Doe").1 There was immediate media interest in the arrest due to

Hatch's impending television appearance on the reality game show

Survivor during its premier season. Although the police initially

released only a redacted copy of Hatch's arrest report to the

press, the National Enquirer soon procured Hatch's redacted mug

shot and a copy of his son's statement to the police, featuring

both in an article published on May 16, 2000. Hatch subsequently

filed this § 1983 and state law action against the Town of

Middletown, Shawn J. Brown, Frank Kluth, Barry Smith, David Leonard

and other unnamed police officers in the United States District

Court, claiming Fourth Amendment violations arising from a false

arrest and violations of his right to privacy under federal and

state law.

The district court initially granted defendants' summary

judgment motion in part, dismissing Hatch's Fourth Amendment claim,

his constitutionally-grounded 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim, and his state

law privacy claims against all defendants except unidentified

officers. With respect to the claims against Captain Leonard and

Lieutenant Smith, the court determined that the individual police

1
Ultimately, the state dropped the assault charges against
Hatch after a Rhode Island Family Court concluded that there was no
probable cause to believe that the child had been abused.

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officers could assert qualified immunity to escape civil liability

under Rhode Island's privacy statute. The court at first denied

defendants' motion for summary judgment on the state law privacy

claims against various unnamed police officers who allegedly

released Hatch's mug shot and excerpts of the statement made to the

police by appellant's son. The judge issued an Order to Show Cause

why the case should not be dismissed since the only remaining

defendants were unidentified officers. Hatch failed to answer the

Order to Show Cause, and the district court dismissed the case.

Hatch now appeals only his state law privacy claims

against Captain Leonard and Lieutenant Smith.2 After reviewing the

2
When Hatch originally sought redress in the district court
under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for alleged violations of his federal right
to privacy, the district court exercised supplemental jurisdiction
over appellant's pendent state law privacy claims. See 28 U.S.C.
§ 1367 (1993). We retain jurisdiction over Hatch's state law
claims on appeal even though Hatch has not appealed his federal
privacy claims. See United Int'l Holdings, Inc. v. Wharf Holdings
Ltd., 210 F.3d 1207, 1219-20 (10th Cir. 2000) ("The scope of a
federal court's jurisdictional power . . . does not fluctuate with
the fate of a federal claim at trial or on appeal, but exists if
the federal claim initially had substance sufficient to confer
subject matter jurisdiction on the [district] court.").
The Tenth Circuit subsequently observed that "[a] federal
claim is insubstantial, and incapable of conferring jurisdiction,
only if it is obviously without merit or is wholly frivolous, or is
clearly foreclosed by prior decisions of the Supreme Court." Id.
at 1220 (internal citations omitted). Appellees do not argue that
the district court abused its discretion in exercising supplemental
jurisdiction over Hatch's state law claims, and our review of the
record does not indicate that Hatch's federal privacy claims were
sufficiently devoid of merit to vitiate federal subject matter
jurisdiction over Hatch's state law claims on appeal. See
Pejepscot Indus. Park, Inc. v. Maine Cent. R.R. Co., 215 F.3d 195,
200 (1st Cir. 2000) (noting that standard of review for
supplemental jurisdiction determinations is abuse of discretion).

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record, we agree with the district court that Captain Leonard acted

reasonably in the face of two conflicting state statutes, and

further conclude that Hatch has failed to establish a claim for

violation of privacy against Lieutenant Smith under Rhode Island's

Privacy Statute. Accordingly, we affirm the decision of the

district court.

I. BACKGROUND

The events leading up to Richard Hatch's arrest are well

documented in Hatch v. Dep't for Children, Youth & Their Families

(Hatch I), 274 F.3d 12 (1st Cir. 2001).3 We briefly recount them

here before turning to the post-arrest period. On the morning of

April 27, 2000, a teacher and nurse at John's elementary school

noticed that John had a bump on his forehead and red marks across

his neck. John disclosed that he had sustained the injuries during

an early morning run with his father. According to John, he was

having trouble keeping the pace set by the appellant, causing him

to fall to the pavement. John claimed that Hatch reacted by first

pulling the boy up by his earlobe and then forcing him to do

pushups by grabbing his neck and pushing his head into the cement.

3
In Hatch I, Richard Hatch brought suit against the Rhode
Island Department for Children, Youth, and Their Families and two
agency caseworkers, seeking monetary damages for alleged violations
of his due process right to uninterrupted custody of his child. We
affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for
defendants after determining that the Eleventh Amendment barred
Hatch's suit against the agency, and that the caseworkers were
entitled to qualified immunity.

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After hearing John's story, school officials contacted the Rhode

Island Department for Children, Youth and Their Families (DCYF) and

the Middletown police. Two police officers brought John to the

Middletown police station, where he was interviewed by a DCYF

caseworker and examined by a doctor. The police then contacted

Hatch and asked him to report to the police station. Upon his

arrival he was arrested and charged with assaulting his son. The

next day, Captain David Leonard, the Public Information Officer for

the Middletown police, redacted a copy of plaintiff's arrest report

and released it to the media. The information withheld from the

report included the mug shot of the plaintiff and the

identification of the child.

Over the next few days Captain Leonard fielded requests

from the local and national media for Hatch's arrest report and

arraignment information. After the initial media blitz, Lieutenant

Barry Smith received a call from the National Enquirer. He

informed the Enquirer that "the bump on the boy's head was the size

of an egg. He had red marks on his neck and other bruises." A May

16, 2000 article reporting Hatch's arrest included this comment as

well as the mug shot withheld from his arrest report and large

excerpts of John's statement to the police. Lieutenant Smith

denied having released the mug shot or John's statement to the

National Enquirer. Although appellees concede that this release

was a violation of department policy, Hatch offered no evidence to

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implicate Lieutenant Smith or any other Middletown police officer

in the unauthorized release of these materials.

The district court granted defendants' summary judgment

motion and dismissed Hatch's false arrest and privacy claims. In

this appeal, Hatch challenges the district court's bench ruling

that the two police officers were entitled to qualified immunity

given the uncertainty under Rhode Island law as to what information

concerning Hatch's arrest could be released as a public record:

That would be a very difficult question
because there's two statutes that seem to
conflict here . . . . Given those conflicting
statutes and given the fact that Mr. Hatch's
privacy right under Rhode Island law arises
from a statute that requires, among other
things, that the fact be a private fact, it
seems to me that it is totally unreasonable
and unrealistic to expect that a reasonable
officer, under these circumstances, would have
recognized that releasing this information
violated some right of Mr. Hatch's if, in
fact, it did.

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo,

Kelley v. LaForce, 288 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 2002), and begin our

analysis by examining the relevant Rhode Island statutes.

II. DISCUSSION

A. The Dissemination of Arrest Information Under Rhode Island Law

Appellant bases his state cause of action on Rhode Island

General Laws § 9-1-28.1(b) (the "Privacy Statute"), which states in

relevant part:

Every person who subjects or causes to be
subjected any citizen of this state . . . to a

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 deprivation and/or violation of his or her
right to privacy shall be liable to the party
injured in an action at law, suit in equity,
or any other appropriate proceedings for
redress in either the superior court or
district court of this state.

To recover civil damages for a privacy violation, the plaintiff

must establish that:

(A) There has been some publication of a private
fact;

(B) The fact which has been made public must be one
which would be offensive or objectionable to a
reasonable man of ordinary sensibilities.

R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-1-28.1(a)(3)(i).

For a fact to be "private" within the meaning of the

statute, "plaintiffs must demonstrate that they actually expected

a disclosed fact to remain private, and that society would

recognize this expectation of privacy as reasonable and be willing

to respect it." Pontbriand v. Sundlun, 699 A.2d 856, 865 (R.I.

1997). While this standard frequently presents questions of fact,

the Supreme Court of Rhode Island has categorically determined that

plaintiffs have no reasonable expectation of privacy with respect

to information contained in a public record: "[I]t is clear that

the statutory right to privacy in Rhode Island does not extend to

those records deemed public." Doe v. Edward A. Sherman Publ'g Co.,

593 A.2d 457, 459 (R.I. 1991). Consequently, the critical issue in

this case is whether Hatch's arrest report is considered a public

record under Rhode Island law. The parties point us to two

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statutes that bear on the classification of this information -- the

Rhode Island Access to Public Records ("Public Records") Statute

that compels the release of all arrest records, and the Child Abuse

Statute that requires all records concerning reports of child abuse

to be kept confidential.4

1. The Rhode Island Access to Public Records Statute

Of the two statutes that potentially govern the status of

Richard Hatch's arrest information, only the Public Records Statute

refers specifically to arrest records. See R.I. Gen. Laws § 38-2-

2(4)(i)(D). The statute narrowly circumscribes the universe of

records maintained by law enforcement agencies that are not

considered public records, providing that "records shall not be

deemed public only to the extent that the disclosure of the records

or information . . . (c) could reasonably be expected to constitute

an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." Id. However, this

provision concludes with the following caveat: "Records relating to

management and direction of a law enforcement agency and records or

reports reflecting the initial arrest of an adult and the charge or

charges brought against an adult shall be public." Id. (emphasis

added).

The significance of classifying particular documents as

"public records" under Rhode Island law is twofold. First, any

4
The relevant provisions of these two statutes and the Rhode
Island Privacy Statute are reproduced in the Appendix at the end of
this opinion.

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person is entitled to review and/or duplicate public records under

reasonable conditions prescribed by the custodian: "Except as

provided in § 38-3-2(4), all records maintained or kept on file by

any public body . . . shall be public records and every person or

entity shall have the right to inspect and/or copy those records at

such reasonable time as may be determined by the custodian

thereof." R.I. Gen. Laws § 38-2-3(a). Hence, sections 38-2-

2(4)(i)(D) and 38-2-3(a) impose an affirmative obligation on law

enforcement agencies to make arrest records available to the

public. Second, as noted above, a determination that particular

records are public is dispositive as to any privacy claims arising

from the release of those records. Edward A. Sherman Publ'g, 593

A.2d at 458.

2. The Rhode Island Child Abuse Statute

Recognizing that certain state or federal laws may impose

confidentiality requirements with respect to specific information,

the Public Records Statute places that information outside the

scope of Title 38: "For the purposes of this chapter, the following

records shall not be deemed public . . . (S) Records, reports,

opinions, information, and statements required to be kept

confidential by federal law or regulation or state law, or rule of

court." R.I. Gen. Laws § 38-2-2(4)(i)(S).

The Rhode Island Child Abuse Statute arguably functions

as such a law. Without explicitly mentioning arrest records, the

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statute provides that "[a]ll records concerning reports of child

abuse and neglect, including reports made to the department,5 shall

be confidential except as specifically provided by this chapter .

. . ." R.I. Gen. Laws § 40-11-13(a). The subsequent clause of the

provision imposes penalties for the disclosure of these records,

but limits the class of people subject to punishment: "Any employee

or agent of the department violating any of the provisions of this

section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be fined not

more than two hundred dollars ($200) or shall be imprisoned for not

more than six (6) months or both." R.I. Gen. Laws § 40-11-13(b).

3. Interpreting the Public Records and Child Abuse
Statutes

Read together, the Public Records and Child Abuse

Statutes are susceptible to at least three reasonable

interpretations. Appellees observe that § 38-2-2(4)(i)(D) of the

Public Records Statute classifies all "records or reports

reflecting the initial arrest of an adult and the charge or charges

brought against an adult" as public documents. They argue that

because Hatch's arrest record clearly falls within the scope of

this provision, Captain Leonard and Lieutenant Smith only divulged

information that was already deemed public under Rhode Island law.

Appellees further assert that § 40-11-13 of the Child Abuse Statute

5
The "department" referred to in § 40-11-13(a) is defined
earlier in Chapter 11 of Title 40 as the DCYF. R.I. Gen. Laws §
40-11-2.

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does not specifically refer to arrest records in its

confidentiality provision, and by its terms in subsections (a) and

(b) appears only to encompass DCYF records and personnel rather

than the records of a local police department. Hence, the Child

Abuse Statute does not undermine the public status of the arrest

information in the records of the Middletown police department.

Alternatively, the language of § 40-11-13(a) of the Child

Abuse Statute emphasizes that "all records concerning reports of

child abuse and neglect, including reports made to the department,

shall be confidential . . . ." R.I. Gen. Laws § 40-11-13(a)

(emphasis added). Significantly, the phrase "all records" in § 40-

11-13(a) is not modified by any language restricting the

confidentiality requirement to DCYF records or personnel. Thus the

Child Abuse Statute might be precisely the kind of confidentiality

statute contemplated by § 38-2-2(4)(i)(S) of the Public Records

Statute, which removes particular records from its purview if

another law mandates that the records remain confidential. Under

this reading of the statutes, § 40-11-13 of the Child Abuse Statute

creates an exception to the final sentence of § 38-2-2(4)(i)(D) of

the Public Records Statute, and prohibits the release of any

information concerning reports of child abuse.

Hatch forgoes this hardline stance in favor of a third

interpretation of the statutes. Focusing on the language of § 38-

2-2(4)(i)(D) of the Public Records Statute, he argues that the

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phrase "records or reports reflecting the initial arrest of an

adult and charges brought against [him]" only authorizes the

disclosure of a skeletal account of the arrest consistent with the

provision's denial of public record status to information that

"could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion

of personal privacy." To the extent that any information beyond

Richard Hatch's name and a simple recitation of the charge was

released to the media, Hatch insists that his right to privacy was

violated.

We find no guidance in the statutes or common law of

Rhode Island to aid us in determining what level of detail runs

afoul of the "reflecting" language in § 38-2-2(4)(i)(D) of the

Public Records Statute. Indeed, the reasonableness of all three

interpretations illustrates the difficulties faced by Rhode Island

police officers unsure as to whether an arrest record containing a

report of child abuse is considered a public record.

B. Qualified Immunity

1. General Principles

We observed in Hatch I that "the law strives to balance

its desire to compensate those whose rights are infringed by state

actors with an equally compelling desire to shield public servants

from undue interference with the performance of their duties and

from threats of liability which, though unfounded, may nevertheless

be unbearably disruptive." Hatch, 274 F.3d at 20 (quoting

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Buenrostro v. Collazo, 973 F.2d 39, 42 (1st Cir. 1992)). In the §

1983 context, the United States Supreme Court has struck this

balance by applying a two-part test to determine whether plaintiffs

may hold government officials civilly liable for alleged violations

of constitutional and federal statutory rights:

[A]ppellate assessment of a qualified immunity
claim is apportioned into two analytic
components. First, if the right asserted by
the plaintiff was "clearly established" at the
time of its alleged violation, we are required
to assume that the right was recognized by the
defendant official, see Harlow [v.
Fitzgerald], 457 U.S. [800,] 818 [(1982)];
Rodriguez v. Comas, 888 F.2d 899, 901 (1st
Cir. 1989); second, we will deny the immunity
claim if a reasonable official situated in the
same circumstances should have understood that
the challenged conduct violated that
established right, see Anderson [v.
Creighton], 483 U.S. [635,] 640-41 [(1987)];
Rodriguez, 888 F.2d at 901.

Burns v. Loranger, 907 F.2d 233, 235-36 (1st Cir. 1990); see also

Camilo-Robles v. Zapata, 175 F.3d 41, 43 (1st Cir. 1999); Aponte

Matos v. Toledo Davila, 135 F.3d 182, 186 (1st Cir. 1998).

Both prongs of this standard afford government officials

some degree of protection when they confront statutory ambiguity

while executing their official duties. If we assume that state

officers in Rhode Island may seek the same qualified immunity from

state law actions that is available to state officials sued under

§ 1983, the contradictory provisions in the case at bar in the

Public Records and Child Abuse statutes undermine Hatch's claim

that his rights were "clearly established" with respect to the

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narrow question of whether police officers are prohibited from

releasing arrest reports containing information of child abuse. As

we observed in Aponte Matos, this resolution of the first prong is

sufficient to support a finding of qualified immunity. Aponte

Matos, 135 F.3d at 187. Alternatively, under the objective

"reasonable officer" standard embodied in the second prong, Captain

Leonard and Lieutenant Smith are strong candidates for qualified

immunity given the absence of any basis for a "reasonable officer"

to conclude that one of the three interpretations outlined above is

the only correct one.

However, before we can conclude that the two police

officers are entitled to qualified immunity, we must examine our

earlier assumption that Rhode Island provides immunity in state law

actions comparable to the immunity that state officers enjoy in §

1983 cases, and determine whether this is actually the case.

2. Qualified Immunity Under Rhode Island Law

Although counsel for Hatch conceded at oral argument that

qualified immunity is available to state officers defending claims

under Rhode Island law, there is no decision from the Supreme Court

of Rhode Island expressly affording government officials common law

immunity from state law claims. Nonetheless, Rhode Island's high

court has left little doubt that the defense exists for state

officers under certain circumstances. In Pontbriand, the Governor

of Rhode Island released the account information of bank depositors

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to encourage the state legislature to pass legislation compensating

depositors in state banks and credit unions that were closed

because they had no federal deposit insurance. Pontbriand, 699

A.2d 856. The account holders brought suit alleging violations of

their right to privacy under state law, prompting the Governor to

claim that he was entitled to "good faith" immunity even if his

actions violated the state privacy statute. Id. Reviewing the

availability of this defense, the court observed that "[a]lthough

not extensively discussed in our prior cases, it seems beyond doubt

that the Governor may be entitled to some form of common law

immunity for his acts performed in good faith." Pontbriand, 699

A.2d at 867 (original emphasis) (citing Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457

U.S. 800, 813-19 (1982), and Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 247-

48 (1974)). The court declined to rule on the availability of

immunity, observing that "the issue was neither extensively briefed

by the parties nor reached by the trial justice below."

Pontbriand, 699 A.2d at 867. However, the court signaled the trial

judge that barring plaintiffs' claims on grounds of qualified

immunity remained an option on remand: "[W]e are of the opinion

that the determination regarding whether official qualified

immunity exists should be left for determination upon remand." Id.

Two years after issuing its decision in Pontbriand, the

Supreme Court of Rhode Island addressed qualified immunity in a

context similar to the facts of this case. See Ensey v. Culhane,

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727 A.2d 687 (R.I. 1999). Ensey was falsely accused by his ex-

girlfriend of kidnaping and raping her at gunpoint.

Notwithstanding the existence of facts strongly suggesting the

plaintiff's innocence, the police obtained an arrest warrant and

issued a verbal press statement revealing Ensey's identity, the

charges, and the facts surrounding the investigation. After the

police uncovered the fabrication, plaintiff filed suit against the

Superintendent of the State Police and ten unnamed police officers,

alleging a host of violations of his state and federal

constitutional rights and his right to privacy under Rhode Island

law. The Supreme Court of Rhode Island made the following comments

in reviewing the defendants' assertion of qualified immunity:

[D]efendants argue that the doctrine of
qualified immunity, an immunity typically
afforded to government officials on the
federal level, bars plaintiff's claims. We
are of the opinion that, in an appropriate
case, the doctrine of qualified immunity might
well be applied by this Court. See Harlow v.
Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)
("government officials performing
discretionary functions, generally are
shielded from liability for civil damages
insofar as their conduct does not violate
clearly established statutory or
constitutional rights of which a reasonable
person would have known").

Id. at 690-91. However, because Ensey could not identify the

police officers who allegedly violated his rights during the

investigation, the court did not reach the question of whether

particular state officers were entitled to qualified immunity.

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 Significantly, Pontbriand and Ensey reflect Rhode

Island's recognition of a qualified immunity defense under state

law analogous to the federal doctrine established by the United

States Supreme Court in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, cited with approval

in both Rhode Island decisions, and routinely applied in § 1983

cases. Hence, we conclude that Hatch's concession that qualified

immunity is available to officers defending state law claims is

well grounded in the law of Rhode Island.

3. Captain Leonard and Lieutenant Smith

Captain Leonard had to navigate between two statutes,

both of which purported to bestow individual rights on a segment of

the population. The Public Records Statute expressly grants

individuals the right to inspect and/or duplicate any documents

that are classified as public records, including "records or

reports reflecting the initial arrest of an adult and the charge or

charges brought against an adult . . . ." R.I. Gen. Laws § 38-2-

2(4)(i)(D). The Child Abuse Statute protects the parties to an

alleged incident of child abuse by preserving the confidentiality

of all records documenting the event. R.I. Gen. Laws § 40-11-

13(a). Hence, if Captain Leonard had interpreted § 40-11-13 of the

Child Abuse Statute to prohibit the release of Hatch's arrest

record in its entirety, members of the media could have

legitimately argued that the police department had violated the

Public Records Statute. Given these uncertainties under Rhode

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Island law, Captain Leonard did not violate any clearly established

right of Hatch to the privacy of the information released to the

media by Leonard. Accordingly, we find that Leonard is entitled to

qualified immunity under Rhode Island law.

As for Lieutenant Smith, we do not even have to reach the

issue of qualified immunity. His minor embellishments of the

arrest report, while probably ill-advised, did not divulge new

information. Instead, he merely characterized facts contained in

a document that had previously been released to the media. Once

Captain Leonard released the report to the press, Hatch could no

longer maintain the expectation that the details contained in the

publicized report would remain private. Swerdlick v. Koch, 721

A.2d 849, 859 (R.I. 1998) ("There is no liability [for publication

of private facts] when the defendant merely gives further publicity

to information about the plaintiff that is already public.")

(quoting Restatement (Second) Torts, § 652D cmt. b). Hence,

Smith's subsequent release of information to the National Enquirer

cannot form the basis of a claim under Rhode Island's Privacy

Statute.

Hatch's complaint also names the Town of Middletown as a

defendant. However, his arguments to the district court throughout

the summary judgment phase and before us focus entirely on the

liability of Captain Leonard and Lieutenant Smith to the exclusion

of the Town. Indeed, appellant's brief contains only two opaque

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references to the Town's policies, without any elaboration of a

theory of municipal liability. We will not address a claim

developed so perfunctorily.6 Ryan v. Royal Ins. Co. of Am., 916

F.2d 731, 734 (1st Cir. 1990) ("It is settled in this circuit that

issues adverted to on appeal in a perfunctory manner, unaccompanied

by some developed argumentation, are deemed to have been

abandoned.").

Accordingly, the district court's entry of summary

judgment in favor of the defendants is affirmed.

So ordered.

6
There are also vague and undeveloped references to unnamed
police officers in appellant's brief. With regard to the officers
who allegedly released Hatch's mug shot and John Doe's statement to
the police, we note that the district court's initial grant of
partial summary judgment left open the possibility that Hatch could
proceed to trial against these officers. However, Hatch's failure
to proffer any evidence identifying the officers responsible for
the release of these materials led the district court to dismiss
this element of his claim as well, and Hatch's brief cannot be read
to challenge this ruling on appeal.

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 Appendix

All references below are to provisions of the Rhode Island General
Laws (2001).

9-1-28.1 Right to Privacy -- Action for Deprivation of Right

(a) Right to privacy created. It is the policy
of this state that every person in this
state shall have a right to privacy which
shall be defined to include any of the
following rights individually . . . (3) The
right to be secure from unreasonable
publicity given to one's private life . . .
(i) In order to recover for violation of
this right, it must be established that: (A)
There has been some publication of a private
fact; (B) The fact which has been made
public must be one which would be offensive
or objectionable to a reasonable man of
ordinary sensibilities . . .

(b) Right of action. Every person who subjects
or causes to be subjected any citizen of
this state or other person within the
jurisdiction thereof to a deprivation and/or
violation of his or her right to privacy
shall be liable to the party injured in an
action at law, suit in equity, or any other
appropriate proceedings for redress in
either the superior court or district court
of this state. The court having
jurisdiction of an action brought pursuant
to this section may award reasonable
attorneys' fees and court costs to the
prevailing party.

38-2-2 Access to Public Records (Definitions)

(4)(i) For the purposes of this chapter, the
following records shall not be deemed public
. . . (D) All records maintained by law
enforcement agencies for criminal law

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 enforcement and all records relating to the
detection and investigation of crime,
including those maintained on any individual
or compiled in the course of a criminal
investigation by any law enforcement agency.
Provided, however, such records shall not be
deemed public only to the extent that the
disclosure of the records or information . .
. (c) could reasonably be expected to
constitute an unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy . . . .
Records relating to management and
direction of a law enforcement agency and
records or reports reflecting the initial
arrest of an adult and the charge or charges
brought against an adult shall be public.

38-2-3 Access to Public Records (Right to Inspect and Copy
Records)

(a) Except as provided in § 38-2-2(4), all
records maintained or kept on file by any
public body, whether or not those records
are required by any law or by any rule or
regulation, shall be public records and
every person or entity shall have the right
to inspect and/or copy those records at such
reasonable time as may be determined by the
custodian thereof.

40-11-13 Abused and Neglected Children (Confidentiality of Records
and Reports)

(a) All records concerning reports of child
abuse and neglect, including reports made to
the department, shall be confidential except
as specifically provided by this chapter or
as specifically provided by § 42-72-8 or
specifically authorized by the family court
in furtherance of the purposes directly
connected with this chapter.

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(b) Any employee or agent of the department
violating any of the provisions of this
section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor,
and shall be fined not more than two hundred
dollars ($200) or shall be imprisoned for
not more than six (6) months or both.

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