California Public Records Act (CPRA) s7922.000-7921.505: Exemption-justification burden, and waiver of an exemption by voluntary disclosure

An agency must justify withholding any record by demonstrating either that the record is exempt under an express provision of Division 10, or that, on the facts of the particular case, the public interest served by not disclosing clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure; this burden-of-justification duty applies uniformly across the more than 75 specific exemptions Part 4 of Division 10 lists (s7922.000). If an agency voluntarily discloses to a member of the public a record that would otherwise be exempt, that disclosure generally waives the exemption for that record going forward, except for disclosures made under the Information Practices Act, discovery, other required legal process, a statute limiting disclosure to specified purposes, a disclosure a legislative body has formally prohibited, or a disclosure to another government agency that agrees to keep the material confidential (s7921.505).