The Indiana Supreme Court stated in its Opinion filed on September 25, 2023, “Here, a hospital mailed a letter containing a patient’s intensely private health matter to a teenage acquaintance of the patient’s daughter, and that
teenager posted the letter to Facebook. Seeking recovery for emotional distress and other damages, the patient sued the hospital contending it (1) invaded her privacy by publicly disclosing her private information and (2) negligently failed to maintain the confidentiality of her information. The hospital moved for summary judgment, which the trial court granted.”

Public-Disclosure Claim

A public-disclosure claim is actionable only upon satisfying four elements: the information disclosed was private; the information was communicated in a way that either reaches or is sure to reach the public in general or a large enough number of persons such that the matter is sure to become public knowledge; the information would be highly offensive to a reasonable person; and the information was not of legitimate public concern.

In the case the Indiana Supreme Court was deciding, a letter containing private health information addressed to a patient was instead mailed to the wrong person. That person posted the letter on her Facebook page. The daughter of the patient saw the Facebook post and advised her mother. The poster at first declined to remove the post but later agreed to return the letter for $100, and the Facebook post was later removed.

The Indiana Supreme Court stated: ” … a full review of this record reveals that conflicting inferences can be drawn as to whether Z.D.’s information was communicated in such a way that it was sure to become public knowledge. Community’s employee not only misaddressed the envelope containing Z.D.’s private health information, but she handwrote the address. Though doing so could have been quite simple, Community designated no evidence establishing the employee was completely unconnected to Z.D. or Kendrick, or that addressing an envelope in handwriting is consistent with ordinary practices at the hospital. Further, the employee did not address and send Z.D.’s private information to a complete stranger to Z.D.’s family; it was sent to Kendrick, a teenager who either attended or had recently attended the same high school as Z.D.’s daughter. The teens were also Facebook friends, and Kendrick even attempted to “tag” Z.D. in her Facebook post. Again, Community designated no evidence establishing that its employee was wholly unaware of these connections or that Kendrick was wholly unfamiliar with Z.D. Simply put, without any evidence providing insight into the employee’s or Kendrick’s actions, we simply do not know if the misaddressed envelope was merely accidental or rather oriented (if not orchestrated) for further dissemination—both inferences are plausible on this record.”

Indiana’s Impact Doctrine

For decades, Indiana’s impact doctrine controlled whether a plaintiff could recover damages for emotional distress in a negligence action. Under this doctrine, a plaintiff could recover emotional-distress damages only when their distress was accompanied by and resulted from a physical injury caused by an impact. Indiana later “modified” the impact doctrine by discarding the physical-injury requirement. Under Indiana’s modified impact rule, a plaintiff may recover damages for emotional distress if they sustain a “direct physical impact” from the negligence.

The Indiana Supreme Court stated in the case it was deciding: “We first hold Community is not entitled to summary judgment on Z.D.’s public-disclosure claim. In reaching that conclusion, we clarify that plaintiffs can recover damages for emotional distress upon satisfying the public-disclosure tort’s elements—none of which require a showing of intentionality. And we further clarify that disclosure to one person can, depending on the surrounding facts and circumstances, satisfy the tort’s publicity element. We then hold Community is entitled to partial summary judgment on Z.D.’s negligence claim. To that end, we decline to exempt negligence-based medical privacy breaches from our modified impact rule’s physical-impact requirement, entitling Community to summary judgment on Z.D.’s negligence claim for her alleged emotional-distress damages. But we find genuine issues of material fact remain as to whether Z.D. can recover her alleged pecuniary damages and whether Community was the proximate cause of those damages. We thus affirm in part and reverse in part.”

Source Z.D. v. Community Health Network, Inc., Case No. 23S-CT-116.

If you or a loved one were harmed as a result of the improper disclosure of private health information in Indiana or in another U.S. state, you should promptly find an Indiana medical malpractice attorney, or a medical malpractice attorney in your state, who may investigate your improper disclosure of private health information claim for you and represent you or your loved one in a improper disclosure of private health information case, if appropriate.

Click here to visit our website or call us toll-free in the United States at 800-295-3959 to find medical malpractice lawyers in your U.S. state who may assist you.

Turn to us when you don’t know where to turn.