Southern Illinoisan v. Illinois Department of Public Health

Summary

The Illinois Supreme Court held that the Illinois Department of Public Health was required to disclose Cancer Registry data concerning neuroblastoma cases by cancer type, diagnosis date, and ZIP code. The court concluded that the requested information did not constitute a group of facts that reasonably tended to identify individuals under the Illinois Health and Hazardous Substances Registry Act and therefore was not exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

Holdings

1. Information tends to lead to the identity of Registry patients under section 4(d) only if the information can be used by the general public to make those identifications. The statute does not require insertion of the word "reasonably," but it establishes a flexible, case-specific standard rather than a per se exemption.
2. The Department failed to establish that the requested Cancer Registry information tended to lead to the identity of specific persons or fell within the FOIA exemption in section 7(1)(a). The requested information therefore had to be disclosed.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Cancer Registry information consisting of cancer type, date of diagnosis, and patient ZIP code tends to lead to the identity of persons whose conditions or treatment are recorded in the Registry under section 4(d) of the Illinois Health and Hazardous Substances Registry Act.
2. Whether the requested information was therefore exempt from disclosure under section 7(1)(a) of the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.

Disposition

affirmed