Ohio Appeals Court Says Health Department Doesn’t Have to Provide COVID-19 Death Records to the Public
- February 11, 2022
The Court of Appeals of Ohio said February 8 that the Ohio Department of Health, Vital Statistics (ODH) doesn’t have to provide COVID-19 death records because doing so would impermissibly disclose protected health information.
In April 2020, Rosanna Miller requested that ODH "run a report for all Cause of Deaths in Ohio coded as Covid-19 (U07.1)," including each decedent's name, age, place of death, and other information.
ODH denied Miller's request, and Miller sued, alleging she was improperly denied access to public records under Ohio's Public Records Act.
In March 2021, the Ohio Court of Claims ordered ODH to provide Miller with the requested records. ODH appealed.
Under the Public Records Act, "records the release of which is prohibited by state or federal law" are not "public records," the court noted.
Accordingly, the court found ODH had no duty to grant Miller's public records request because the release of information contained within those records is prohibited by state law.
Miller v. Ohio Dep’t of Health, No. 21AP-267 (Ohio Ct. App. Feb. 8, 2022).