Florida Supreme Court Stands Up For Privacy

If you agree with the idea that medical information should be private, how would you feel if you had to give up your right of privacy, just because you or a loved one was hurt by medical negligence.

Obviously, nobody believes that relevant information pertaining to an injury claim against a medical provider should be cloaked with the same privacy rights as other medical information. But why would anyone have to give up their right to privacy regarding unrelated records or medical information?

That’s what the Florida legislature tried to do, until the Florida Supreme Court said “nope.”

In 2013, a law went on the books that required any person who wanted to bring a claim for injury or death because of medical negligence to make his or her treating physicians available for interviews. These interviews would be conducted secretly and the claimant or his representative was not allowed to be present or know what information was shared.

The interviews of a claimant’s treating physicians could be done by lawyers, expert consultants or insurance adjusters, and just about anyone else. The law has no restriction on the number of interviews that could take place. And it was not just limited to treating physicians relevant to the claimed injury, it was any treating physician.

What was the idea behind this law? There are 2 points of view. The stated reason is that doctors and hospitals need to be able to properly defend these claims and weed out the frivolous ones. To do that lawyers and their experts should be able sit down with somebody’s doctor and ask any question they wanted without the difficulty of the claimant or her lawyer interrupting or asserting objections to certain discussions.

The other perspective is that this would create one more hurdle to impede people from bringing claims in the first place. Since we all agree that the right to privacy is important and held dear by everybody, what better way to deter people from bringing claims than to require them to share their entire medical history with complete strangers and then make their doctors answer unlimited questions about that person’s medical history.

Florida Supreme Court Draws The Line On Privacy

In Weaver v. Myers, (Fla. 2017), the Florida Supreme Court struck down this law in recognition of the importance of the right to privacy. Giving up that right to help resolve claims or weed out frivolous lawsuits didn’t make sense. But even more noteworthy, the Florida Supreme Court recognized that this scheme would deter legitimate claims resulting in restriction of access to the court system.

This decision condemns a law that restricts access to the courts.  That’s big!

Our State and Federal constitutions enshrine the right of access to the courts. Laws that attempt to close the courthouse doors don’t square with these rights. Keeping the courthouse doors open to all is a central principle upon which Perenich The Law Firm was founded. Every day we work to make this ideal a reality: Justice for all! We applaud our state Supreme Court for stating the value of that principle in this decision.