Privacy suit filed against doctor and hospital
Norma Lozano was a patient at UCLA Medical Center. According to the Daily Journal, she had been fighting with Dedreck Harris, her ex-boyfriend. Harris’ current girlfriend, Alexis Price, worked as a medical assistant for Dr. John Edwards, a private doctor who had access to UCLA’s health records. Even though Lozano was not a patient of Dr. Edwards, the latter could access any medical center patient record. Dr. Edwards had given Price his password to view most of UCLA’s 4 million patient files.
Price used Dr. Edwards’ password to access Lozano’s medical records from UCLA and took a cellphone photo of Lozano’s patient records. Price then taunted Lozano by saying that her records showed that Lozano had a sexually transmitted disease.
Lozano sued UCLA and Dr. Edwards, claiming that the medical center and the doctor violated the state’s Confidentiality of Medical Information Act, thus violating her privacy rights. Lozano claimed that she suffered significant emotional distress because of UCLA’s negligence.
UCLA asked the court to dismiss the case, stating that it should not be held liable for the intentional misconduct of Dr. Edwards. Dr. Edwards violated UCLA policy prohibiting doctors from sharing their passwords with their assistants. However, the court refused to dismiss the case, saying that the jury will have to decide whether UCLA should be held liable for not installing a better security system that would have prevented misconduct on the part of doctors and their assistants. As of the writing of this column, the trial is still ongoing.
These days, news of various confidential data breaches abound. They are not limited to credit card and bank companies anymore. Any entity that stores the private information of people can be hacked, as Sony Entertainment, Home Depot, and Target have found out. Various agencies of the government, including the IRS, have also been victimized. Even the so-called “cheaters’ website,” Ashley Madison, had not been immune, when reports surfaced in mid-July that the company was hacked, and names, addresses and phone numbers of 37 million of its users were subsequently downloaded onto the internet.
The injury to consumers from these data breaches have not yet been fully ascertained, although media pundits claim the Ashley Madison hacking has the potential to “ruin lives” and maybe endanger national security. What can consumers do?
The right to privacy is a personal and fundamental right protected by the Constitutions of both California and the United States. All individuals have a right of privacy in information pertaining to them. The state recognizes that the right to privacy is being threatened by the indiscriminate collection, maintenance, and dissemination of personal information and the lack of effective laws and legal remedies.
It further recognizes that the use of computers and other sophisticated information technology has greatly magnified the potential risk to individual privacy that can occur from the maintenance of personal information. To protect the privacy of individuals, California has found it necessary that the maintenance and dissemination of personal information be subject to strict limits.
One such law requires commercial websites and online services that collect personally identifiable information about individual consumers to conspicuously post its privacy policy on its website. Examples of “personally identifiable information” include first and last name, home or other physical address, an e-mail address, a telephone number, a social security number, or other types of identifiers that permit the physical or online contacting of a specific individual.
For consumers victimized by privacy violations who suffer damage as a result of an unlawful practice, the law may allow them to obtain monetary damages; restitution of property; punitive damages; court costs and attorney’s fees.
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The Law Offices of C. Joe Sayas, Jr. welcomes inquiries about this topic. All inquiries are confidential and at no-cost. Atty. Sayas’ Law Office is located at 500 N. Brand Blvd. Suite 980, Glendale, CA 91203. You can contact the office at (818) 291-0088 or visit www.joesayaslaw.com.
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C. Joe Sayas, Jr., Esq. is trial attorney who has obtained several million dollar recoveries for his clients against employers and insurance companies. He has been selected as a Super Lawyer by the Los Angeles Magazine, featured in the cover of Los Angeles Daily Journal’s Verdicts and Settlements, and is a member of the Million Dollar-Advocates Forum.