Herring v. Keenan

Herring v. Keenan,
No. 99-1263 (10th Cir., July 10, 2000)

The estate of a former probationer sued a probation officer, claiming that in 1993
the probation officer violated the probationer’s right to privacy by revealing
the probationer’s HIV status to the probationer’s employer and to the
probationer’s sister.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held that a constitutional
right to privacy prohibits a government official from disclosing a person’s
health information to others. However, the court recognized that this right to
privacy was not clearly established in 1993 when these alleged violations took
place. Therefore, the court held that the probation officer was entitled to
qualified immunity for her disclosure of the probationer’s HIV status and that
a reasonable probation officer in late 1993 could not have been presumed to know
that a limited disclosure of a probationer’s HIV status would violate the
probationer’s constitutional rights.