Pub. Employees' Ret. Sys. of Nev. v. Nev. Policy Research Inst., Inc.

Summary

The Nevada Supreme Court held that the Nevada Public Records Act requires the Public Employees' Retirement System of Nevada to search its electronic database for existing, nonconfidential retiree information and disclose responsive records when the public interest in access outweighs asserted risks. The court distinguished creating a new record from querying an existing database, but remanded because the database might no longer contain the requested information as it existed in 2014.

Holdings

1. Information maintained electronically in individual retiree files is not confidential merely because it is stored in those files when the information itself is nonconfidential, readily extractable, and PERS has not identified a statute, rule, or case law declaring it confidential.
2. Speculative risks of identity theft, fraud, or cybercrime do not clearly outweigh the public's presumed right of access to the limited retiree information requested here.
3. The Nevada Public Records Act requires a state agency to query and search its electronic database to identify, retrieve, and produce responsive existing public records; searching the database or creating a program to retrieve existing information is not the creation of a new document or customized report.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the requested retiree employment and pension information was confidential under the Nevada Public Records Act and related statutes.
2. Whether the asserted risks of identity theft, fraud, and cybercrime clearly outweighed the public interest in disclosure.
3. Whether searching and programming PERS's electronic database to retrieve existing information constituted the creation of a new record or customized report.
4. Whether the production order should stand when PERS might no longer be able to reproduce the information as it existed in 2014.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded