Jon Hopkins, Appellant v. the City of Brinkley, Arkansas; and the Brinkley Water & Sewer Department, Appellees

Summary

The court held that a municipal utility ratepayer’s home address, contained in a public record, was not exempt from disclosure under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act. It rejected the argument that federal identity-theft regulations preempted the Act, declined to reach the asserted constitutional privacy claim because the utility offered insufficient proof, and held that the requester’s motive was irrelevant. Justice Cliff Hoofman, dissenting, would have affirmed because disclosure of customers’ private contact information was unrelated to the FOIA’s purpose and produced an unintended absurd result.