Wisconsin Statutes and Annotations on Public Records and Property (excerpts)

19.35 Access to records...

(5) Record destruction. (continued)
Items subject to examination under s. 346.70 (4) (f) may not be withheld by prosecution under a common law rule that investigative material may be withheld from a criminal defendant. State ex rel.
Prosecutor's files are exempt from public access under the common law.
Records relating to pending claims against the state under s. 893.82 need not be disclosed under s. 19.35; records of non-pending claims must be disclosed unless an in camera inspection reveals that the attorney-client privilege would be violated.
The public records law confers no exemption as of right on indigents from payment of fees under (3). George v. Record Custodian, 169 Wis. 2d 573, 485 N.W.2d 460 (Ct. App. 1992).
A settlement agreement containing a pledge of confidentiality kept in the possession of a school district's attorney was a public record subject to public access under sub. (3).
The denial of a prisoner's information request regarding illegal behavior by guards on the grounds that it could compromise the guards' effectiveness and subject them to harassment was insufficient.
The amount of prepayment required for copies may be based on a reasonable estimate. The Foust decision does not automatically exempt all records stored in a closed prosecutorial file. The exemption is limited to material actually pertaining to the prosecution. Department of Regulation and Licensing test scores were subject to disclosure under the open records law.
Subs. (1) (i) and (3) (f) did not permit a demand for prepayment of $1.29 in response to a mail request for a record.
Personal records in the hands of an authority are not exempt from the open records law. The custodian of the records must consider all relevant factors, balancing public and private interests, in determining whether the records should be released. The individual whose personal interests are implicated by the potential release of the records may intervene and seek circuit court review of a decision to release the records.
An agency cannot promulgate an administrative rule that creates an exception to the open records law.
While certain statutes grant explicit exceptions to the open records law, many statutes set out broad categories of records not open to an open records request. A custodian faced with such a broad statute must state with specificity a public policy reason for refusing to release the requested record.