It was a party to reme—wait, what? (Via morguefile.com)

A Chicago  student is suing a doctor, hospital, and medical school after the doctor allegedly took pictures of her in the hospital, where she had been admitted for overindulgence in alcohol, and posted them on Facebook. The student was reportedly taken to the hospital by ambulance at about 3:00 a.m. on June 13, 2013. The defendant, who was not the student’s treating physician, allegedly looked at her medical records around noon that day, using his medical ID card to gain access to the files. According to Courthouse News Service:

It continues: “At or around 4 p.m., on June 13, 2013, [defendant] came down to the ER again and commenced taking pictures of plaintiff while she was on the hospital bed, crying, and attached to an IV.

“[Defendant] was seen by hospital security in the hospital taking the pictures and was asked to delete them immediately, which he refused to do.

“[Defendant] decided to public said photographs on the Internet through Facebook and Instagram online sharing programs.

“[Defendant] attached statements of commentary describing [plaintiff]’s condition in those photographs.

“The photographs were recognized as being photographs of the plaintiff by at least four persons (ST, DB, VT and M).

“At all times, while in the hospital, plaintiff did not consent to her pictures being taken by [defendant], nor was capable of giving any such consent.

“Plaintiff felt violated, as her hospitalization was her private medical matter.

“Plaintiff is a Northwestern graduate with a bright future ahead of her, with potential to someday work for Fortune 500 companies, which may now not occur because of said photographs.”

I have to admit, I’m curious to know what sort of “statements of commentary” the doctor wrote, and what possibly possessed him to do this at all (especially if hospital security specifically told him to delete the photos.)

The plaintiff is asking for “$1.5 million in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages, for invasion of privacy, public disclosure of private facts, negligence and emotional distress.” At this point, her damages are actually pretty speculative, at least as far as employability is concerned. It is not far-fetched at all to think that prospective employers will look at social media while investigating her employment applications, but nothing seems to have happened yet. She should also consider the Streisand Effect here. (I realize that I’m not helping matters by writing about the lawsuit, so I redacted all the names and marked the relevant links “nofollow.”)

I’m wondering if the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) offers any remedies in this situation, but I doubt it. Penalties for HIPAA violations (of which this just has to be one) seem to mostly consist of administrative fines, not liability to individual plaintiffs. This might also violate an ethical duty of the defendant, but again, that amounts to various administrative penalties that don’t benefit the plaintiff in any direct way.

I think we can all at least agree that the defendant is a seriously major asshole, and the publicity around this can’t be good for him, either.

Photo credit: stanislava from morguefile.com.