Rule 2.130.Confidential Personal Information in Family Law and Certain Protective Order Proceedings

Family law files hold the material identity thieves and abusers want. This rule answers that by pulling it out of the documents entirely. Confidential personal information means a party's or a party's child's Social Security number, date of birth, driver license number, any other names used now or in the past, and employer's name, address, and telephone number. Where a statute or rule requires that information in a document filed in a proceeding under ORS chapters 25, 106, 107, 108, 109, or 110, or one initiated under ORS 24.190, ORS 30.866, ORS 124.010, or ORS 163.763, the party must file it on a Confidential Information Form, keep it out of the filed document, and redact it from exhibits and attachments. The one thing not redacted is a court-certified document a statute or rule requires you to file.

The mechanics are exacting. File a separate form for each person about whom you must provide information, with a minor child's information included in the form of the party providing it. File an amended form when you file a document that requires confidential personal information about a party that has changed or that an earlier form does not contain. Note on the filed document that the information has been separately filed under this rule. Mail or deliver notice to all parties that a form or amended form has been filed, using the notice form the Oregon Judicial Department provides, and file a certificate of mailing or delivery. The court then segregates the form from documents open to public inspection.

Three exceptions and one extension are worth marking. The rule does not apply to the information required in a money award under ORS 18.042, to a party's former legal name in a name change request under ORS 107.105(1)(h), or to a document filed in an adoption proceeding initiated under ORS 109.309. It does extend to documents filed in a contempt action brought within one of the covered proceedings. And section (9) sets an expectation: subject to UTCR 2.110, the court is not required to redact confidential personal information from any document, whenever filed. Protection depends on the party using the form, not on the court catching an omission.

Access turns on consent or a court order. You may inspect a form you filed, and a form that holds only your own information. Another party's form opens to you on an affidavit of consent, signed and dated by the person whose information it is and stating the dates the consent runs, or on an order under this rule. A nonparty needs the same kind of affidavit of consent, or must file a request and supporting affidavit served on all parties in the manner prescribed for service of summons or by certified mail, return receipt requested. Note that an affidavit means an affidavit here: the rule states that notwithstanding UTCR 2.120, a declaration may not be substituted. The court must deny a motion or request to inspect where a Finding of Risk and Order for Nondisclosure has been entered for the party under the child support program's administrative rule, where a restraining or other protective order protects the party or the party's children from the person asking, or where the health, safety, or liberty of the party or the children would be jeopardized or unreasonably put at risk. If inspection is allowed, the court may limit disclosure and enter protective orders, anyone who inspects must not disclose the information further except within a client-attorney relationship, as law authorizes, or as the court orders, and violating that limit can expose a person to contempt.