Astonishing Invasion of Personal Privacy Challenged on Appeal

I wrote about this astonishing invasion of privacy in a blog two weeks ago.  The clients are angry with the decision, which obliges them to provide private and confidential financial and medical information not just from a point in time after the automobile accident in which they were injured, but also from the period before that accident.

 

The judge ordered one client, whose claim had already been presented and contained no request for financial compensation, just damages for pain and suffering, to provide all of his pre- and post-accident financial information!  The implication is that any person who claims personal injury, no matter how modest and circumscribed the claim, will be required to give virtually unlimited access to their personal and confidential medical and financial information.  This is intolerable to most citizens of a society which values privacy as a bulwark of human dignity, and the confidentiality of medical records as the foundation of therapeutic relationships.  The following two interrogatories give the flavor of the questions asked of each plaintiff.

1.     For the time period January 1^st, 2002 to present, please advise of all physicians that you have received medical services from, including particulars of the names of the physicians, the location of their offices, the dates of the visits, the complaints you made to the physicians at each visit, and the treatment – including referrals and prescriptions each physician rendered to you on each particular visit.

7.     For the time period January 1, 2002 to present, please advise of your annual gross income for the years, respectively, of 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, please particularize that part of your gross annual income which was for employment and that part or parts which you received from other sources.  If you have non-taxable benefits of any kind please specify.

 

The reasoning of the decision of the judge is stated in the following paragraph:

[14]      In all other respects, I am satisfied that the questions are relevant to the claims raised, namely “personal injuries”, “pain and suffering and loss of amenities”, “special damages”, and “further and other relief”.  Certainly, claims for loss of amenities raise questions whether those amenities had been lost by reasons of earlier accidents or pre-existing disease.  The Applicant needs to be able to verify prior incomes to determine potential lost incomes.  All of the questions permitted can be answered easily without great effort or cost on the part of the Respondents.  There is nothing oppressive or irrelevant being sought nor are the permitted questions embarrassing, unreasonably annoying nor likely to cause expense.  In fact, the process chosen may obviate the need for oral discovery and thus save expense.

The documents filed in the court of appeal, including our brief for leave to appeal, can be found in our Library.