MDAG

Dear Ms. St. John:

The Maryland Office of the Attorney General (OAG) has received your request under the Public Information Act, Md. Code Ann., Gen. Prov. ("GP") §§ 4-101-4-601, seeking written agreements between OAG and Physicians for Responsible Opioids Prescribing or certain individuals. OAG received your request on September 20, 2022, and began to process it.

After searching broadly throughout OAG, we have identified a responsive record. I write now to tell you that it will take us more than 10 working days to determine whether the record, or portions of it, is exempt from disclosure under the Act. We anticipate that we will be able to complete this work and respond to your request by October 12, 2022. I do not yet know the extent to which the record is subject to inspection, but, if all or portions of it are to be withheld, the response will explain the reason for that.

We do not anticipate charging a fee for our response. If that changes, we will notify you.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns regarding our processing of your request.

Sincerely,

Ben Harrington

[Office of the Attorney General]
[https://www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov/images/twitter.png]<https://twitter.com/brianfrosh>[https://www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov/images/facebook.png]<https://www.facebook.com/MarylandAttorneyGeneral/>
Ben Harrington
Assistant Attorney General
Office of the Attorney General
Opinions & Advice
200 Saint Paul Place
Baltimore, Maryland 21202
p: 410-576-6355
bharrington@oag.state.md.us
www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov<https://www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov/>
The information contained in this communication (including any attachments) may be confidential and legally privileged. This email may not serve as a contractual agreement unless explicit written agreement for this purpose has been made. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication or any of its contents is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please re-send this communication to the sender indicating that it was received in error and delete the original message and any copy of it from your computer system.

Dear Ms. St. John,

I had hoped to respond to your request today, but we need more time for the legal review. We plan to respond by the 30-day statutory deadline. See GP § 4-203(b)(1).

Sincerely,

Ben Harrington

Dear Ms. St. John:

This message responds to your September 20, 2022, request under the Public Information Act, Md. Code Ann., Gen. Prov. ("GP") §§ 4-101-4-601, seeking written agreements between the Maryland Office of the Attorney General ("OAG") and Physicians for Responsible Opioids Prescribing or certain individuals created between January 1, 2011, and September 20, 2022.
As I stated in earlier correspondence, after searching broadly throughout OAG, we have identified one responsive record. The record is an agreement for expert services between OAG and one of the organizations or individuals listed in your request. For the following reasons, the agreement is not subject to disclosure.
OAG entered into the agreement in anticipation of litigation, through a procedure for procuring confidential services that is authorized by State law. See Md. Code Ann., State Fin. & Proc. § 13-107(b). The agreement is not routinely subject to discovery in civil litigation. See Md. Rule 2-402(d) (Work Product), (g) (Trial Preparation-Experts). As such, it is exempt from disclosure under GP § 4-344 as an "interagency or intra-agency letter or memorandum that would not be available by law to a private party in litigation with [OAG]." See Cranford v. Montgomery County, 300 Md. 759, 775 (1984) (materials that are not "routinely or normally discoverable" fall within the agency memoranda exception). Disclosure of the agreement would be contrary to the public interest because it would undermine OAG's legally recognized privilege to withhold the document from discovery and, more generally, would disclose confidential litigation strategy. Because the entire agreement is not routinely subject to discovery, it is not possible to redact only part of the information it contains. Finally, even if GP § 4-344 did not apply, the rate of compensation for the expert in the agreement would be confidential commercial and financial information that is protected from disclosure under GP § 4-335.
Pursuant to GP § 4-362, you are entitled to seek judicial review of this decision. Alternatively, you may file a request for mediation with the Public Access Ombudsman and, if the Ombudsman is unable to resolve the matter, may subsequently seek a resolution from the Public Information Act Compliance Board for those matters within the Compliance Board's jurisdiction. See GP §§ 4-1A-01 et seq. and 4-1B-01 et seq. If you have any questions about this response, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Ben Harrington

[Office of the Attorney General]
[https://www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov/images/twitter.png]<https://twitter.com/brianfrosh>[https://www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov/images/facebook.png]<https://www.facebook.com/MarylandAttorneyGeneral/>
Ben Harrington
Assistant Attorney General
Office of the Attorney General
Opinions & Advice
200 Saint Paul Place
Baltimore, Maryland 21202
p: 410-576-6355
bharrington@oag.state.md.us
www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov<https://www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov/>
The information contained in this communication (including any attachments) may be confidential and legally privileged. This email may not serve as a contractual agreement unless explicit written agreement for this purpose has been made. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication or any of its contents is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please re-send this communication to the sender indicating that it was received in error and delete the original message and any copy of it from your computer system.