This case has been going on for years, and you can find coverage of it on this site starting in 2008. And as a privacy advocate, I’m obviously strongly on the side of holding hospital and healthcare personnel responsible and accountable if they violate patient privacy or confidentiality. And indeed, some employees were fired and convicted on charges of violating HIPAA, and I might have wanted some stronger sanctions or consequences for them. But the saddest part is that a decade after Pressly died of her injuries, this case is still in the courts. I wish her mother peace.
Max Brantley reports:
The Arkansas Supreme Court today kept alive a damage suit filed by the mother of slain KATV anchor Anne Pressley (sic) over unauthorized sharing of her medical records when she was hospitalized after she was raped and beaten in her home in October 2008. She died of the injuries.
The Supreme Court upheld Judge Leon Johnson’s finding that Presley’s (sic) mother and estate administrator, Patricia Cannady, could not pursue an invasion of privacy claim because privacy protections don’t extend to other parties and the claim ended at Pressley’s (sic) death.
The Supreme Court, however, said a trial was required on a claim of “outrage” by Cannady.
Read more on Arkansas Times.