Ohio high court rejects lawsuit seeking IDs of drunken drivers
10/26/2007COLUMBUS - The Ohio Supreme Court has rejected a newspaper's effort to get the names of all Ohioans convicted of drunken driving.
The court, without comment, voted 7-0 Wednesday to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Cincinnati Enquirer.
The state contended that the identities were protected by state and federal privacy laws.
The lawsuit followed a newspaper analysis in which the Enquirer reported finding nearly 36,000 drivers with five or more drunken-driving convictions in Ohio. But state officials declined to provide access to the names in a database of records dating to 1973.
Jack Greiner, a Cincinnati attorney representing the Enquirer, called it disappointing that the Supreme Court dismissed the case without oral arguments or full legal briefs.