## Facts

- Donald L. Hassig and St. Lawrence Environmental Action sought cancer-registry information from the New York State Department of Health (DOH) under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).
- The request sought cancer diagnoses and deaths for specific zip codes in St. Lawrence County over multiple years (1976–1997), to support cancer-prevention advocacy.
- Petitioners proposed limiting disclosure by excluding years/zip codes with two or fewer records.
- DOH denied the request, citing confidentiality requirements governing cancer-registry data under New York Public Health Law § 2402 and 42 U.S.C. § 280e.
- DOH asserted that even aggregated zip-code/year data could allow identification of individual patients in small populations when combined with other available information, supporting this claim with an affidavit from the Director of the State Cancer Registry.
- After an unsuccessful administrative appeal, petitioners brought an Article 78 proceeding to compel disclosure; the trial court dismissed the petition, and petitioners appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether DOH met its burden under FOIL to withhold requested cancer-registry data as “specifically exempted” from disclosure by state and federal statutes protecting patient confidentiality.
2. Whether the risk that aggregated zip-code/year cancer data could be combined with other information to identify individual patients justified nondisclosure.

## Decision

- The Appellate Division, Third Department affirmed the judgment dismissing the Article 78 petition.
- The court held that the requested cancer-registry information was protected by specific confidentiality statutes and therefore fell within FOIL’s statutory-exemption framework.
- The court concluded DOH provided a sufficiently specific justification—supported by an expert affidavit—that disclosure could permit identification of individual cancer patients, even with petitioners’ proposed exclusions.

## Legal Principles

- FOIL’s presumption of public access yields when a state or federal statute specifically exempts requested records from disclosure.
- In assessing confidentiality protections, the relevant inquiry includes whether requested data, though lacking direct identifiers, could reasonably permit identification when combined with other available information.
- An agency satisfies its burden to invoke a FOIL exemption by providing a particularized, nonconclusory justification; detailed affidavits from knowledgeable officials may suffice.
- Statutes protecting cancer-registry information bar disclosure not only of explicit identifiers but also of information that would disclose, or permit inference of, a patient’s identity.

## Conclusion

The court upheld DOH’s denial of a FOIL request for zip-code/year cancer-registry data because state and federal confidentiality statutes protected the information, and DOH showed through specific, affidavit-supported reasoning that disclosure could enable reidentification of individual patients.


In re Hassig v. N.Y. State Dep’t of Health, 294 A.D.2d 781 (N.Y. App. Div. 3d Dep’t 2002)