Tabata v. Charleston Area Med. Ctr., Inc. (Summary)

BREACH OF PATIENT CONFIDENTIALITY

Tabata v. Charleston Area Med. Ctr., Inc., No. 13–0766 (W. Va. May 28, 2014)

The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s ruling that a group of patients did not meet the criteria for a class action lawsuit.  The dispute emerged after a medical center accidentally published patients’ personal and medical information on a public website.

In February 2011, certain patients received a letter from a local medical center informing them that some of their personal and medical information had been unintentionally placed on the Internet.  The information, which had been exposed since September 2010, included the patients’ names, dates of birth, contact details, social security numbers, and basic respiratory care records.  Although there was no evidence of unauthorized access, the local medical center admitted that someone could have found the information by conducting an “advanced internet search.”  The medical center offered to provide the affected patients with a full year of credit monitoring.

Some patients filed lawsuits alleging a breach of confidentiality and an invasion of privacy.  In addition, they attempted to initiate a class action lawsuit on behalf of the 3,655 patients affected by the breach.  The lower court ruled that the patients lacked standing to bring a claim because they could not show that they had suffered any kind of actual harm from the publication of their medical records.  Further, the lower court held that the patients did not meet the requirements for a class action lawsuit, including commonality (i.e., that the class, as a whole, has common issues of law or fact to raise in the lawsuit), typicality (i.e., that the representatives of the class have claims that are typical of the other members of the class), and predominance of common issues of law or fact (i.e., that the common issues of law or fact are greater than the individual issues that members of the class may have) among members of the class.

On appeal, the high court reversed the lower court decision, finding that patients have a legal interest in the confidentiality and privacy of their health information and, in turn, the plaintiff patients in this case had standing to bring a suit alleging violation of those interests.  Further, the court held that the patients satisfied the requirements for bringing a class action, noting that the claims of the entire class would be based on the same set of facts and would allege the same legal claims for violation of confidentiality and invasion of privacy.

Read the Supreme Court of West Virginia Opinion Here

Read the Dissenting Opinion of Justice Ketchum Here