If you’re relatively new to medical privacy breach cases, you may not know about a 2008 case involving insider snooping concerning the care and death of news anchor, Anne Pressly. You can find previous coverage of the breach and case linked from here, but the short version is that the three being sued have previously pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of violating HIPAA. The civil lawsuit tries to hold them and the medical center liable. Whether a medical center/employer can be held liable for the actions of employees has produced conflicting outcomes in different courts.
John Lynch reports:
Almost eight years after TV news anchor Anne Pressly was fatally beaten in her Little Rock home, one final court battle remains.
[…]
The legal question that remains is whether the hospital where Pressly was treated can be sued, along with a doctor and two former staff members, for illegally snooping into Pressly’s medical records as she lay dying.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson said at a recent hearing that he hopes to reach a decision by the end of this week, a ruling that would come just before what would have been Pressly’s 34th birthday.
Pressly’s mother, Patti Cannady, sued St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center, staff members Candida Griffin and Sarah Elizabeth Miller, and Dr. Jay Holland in October 2009, about a month before the criminal trial.
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