Court Dismisses Billion-Dollar HIV Disclosure Suit Against Newspaper
 
March 29, 2006
 
Debra Deardourff Faulk- Tampa

A state appeals court has dismissed a billion-dollar lawsuit against a Dallas newspaper arising out of the alleged disclosure of a man’s HIV-positive status.

In December 2003, the Dallas Observer published a story concerning the Dallas-based Cathedral of Hope church, which the article described as the “world’s largest gay and lesbian church.” The article focused on an ongoing public controversy about allegations against top church officials, including fiscal mismanagement and potential insurance misconduct by a tax-exempt religious organization. The article mentioned the plaintiff, who filed the litigation under the “John Doe” pseudonym, in the context of reporting on insurance benefits for unpaid church volunteers. A former employee of the church had furnished the Observer’s reporter with a series of electronic messages, in which there was information that church officials had requested the former employee to add the plaintiff to the church’s health insurance policy and that the plaintiff was HIV-positive. The former employee refused and ultimately resigned.

John Doe filed the lawsuit in the District Court of Dallas County, Texas, alleging that the newspaper’s owner violated a Texas statute designed to prevent the disclosure of HIV test results.

The Texas statute in question requires HIV test results to be kept confidential and provides criminal penalties for unauthorized disclosures. John Doe alleged that the Observer willfully and wrongfully disclosed his test results. He sought damages in excess of $1 billion based on the newspaper’s circulation of at least 110,000 and his allegation that each viewing of the article on the Observer’s Web site constituted a distinct, wrongful disclosure.

On August 20, 2004, the Observer filed a motion for summary judgment arguing that John Does’ theory of the case misrepresented Texas statutory law and disregarded the First Amendment and the Texas Constitution. The trial court denied the Observer’s motion. On January 24, 2006, a Texas appellate court reversed the trial court and dismissed the case against the newspaper.

The appellate court ruled that the Texas law prohibiting HIV-status disclosure was designed to prevent disclosure by people “who had knowledge of or connection to [a person’s] medical information.” As a result, a unanimous three-judge panel held that the Texas law did not apply to the media or other members of the public who do not have access to a patient’s medical records.

This litigation is the latest in a growing trend of actions involving the news media that pit legal protections for the publication of truthful, nonprivate, lawfully obtained information against a panoply of federal and state health care privacy laws and regulations. Fortunately, this favorable appellate decision limits restrictions on disclosure of lawfully obtained health care information to a subset of individuals and does not provide a blanket prohibition on disclosing newsworthy events.

For more information, e-mail Debra E. Deardourff at debra.deardourff@hklaw.com or call toll free, 1-888-688-8500.