Breach of Medical Confidence in Ohio

Fortunately, the patchwork of state and federal statutory, administrative, and case law has greatly limited unrestricted disclosure of medical secrets through the threat of civil and criminal liability. While the law governing the disclosure of medical information sorely lacks a comprehensive approach, one overriding principle emerges from this patchwork: the concern for confidentiality represented in the Hippocratic Oath is alive in Ohio and should guide the release of any medical secrets in the state. There are several statutes that regulate the release of certain types of medical information. For example, information concerning patients suffering from alcohol or drug abuse is covered by Sections 5234 and 5275 of the Public Health Services Act, and the comprehensive regulatory scheme thereunder,6 and information concerning mental illness may be subject to the restrictions of Section 5122.31 of the Ohio Revised Code. The burden of regulating the disclosure of most types of medical information, however, has fallen upon the common law. The common law also acts to close the gaps in statutory schemes seeking to limit the disclosure of a particular type of medical information. This article deals with the development of the common law in this area and the emergence of breach of confidence as a recognized tort in Ohio

Nonrefundable Retainers: Impermissible Under Fiduciary, Statutory and Contract Law

Since the New York Court of Appeals banned nonrefundable retainers, numerous other courts have joined in prohibiting this widespread practice of lawyers charging a fee for services in advance and keeping the fee even if the services are not performed. This may reflect increased judicial recognition of the effect of egregious fee practices on the image of the bar and the role such practices play in the declining esteem in which the legal profession is held. Among the more provocative contributors to this ongoing debate, Professor Steven Lubet recently reviewed our work advocating the ban against nonrefundable retainers and posed a number of questions about the per se prohibition against them. In this Article, we respond to Professor Lubet\u27s questions as well as to those posed by other scholars. In Part I, we discuss the client discharge right, the cornerstone upon which the absolute ban on nonrefundable retainers rests, and respond to a series of arguments concerning its meaning, how it may be impaired, and whether it may be waived. In Part II, we show that legitimate purposes that may be served by nonrefundable retainers cannot avoid impairing the client discharge right, but that other fee arrangements that do not impair that right can easily be designed to serve some of those ends. In Part III, we extend an invitation to address the issues we have identified to all those who believe that a per se ban against nonrefundable retainers is unnecessary to prevent the abuses they generate. We have previously extended this invitation to devise a less inclusive rule that would in a practical and self-effectuating way prohibit the abuses while permitting the attainment of legitimate purposes. Unfortunately for the debate, however, none of the participants have accepted this invitation. We therefore think it bears repeating

Prince v. St. Francis-St. George Hospital, Inc.

This note considers the possible impact on Ohio law of the Prince holding. A review of Ohio\u27s prior position on invasion of privacy suggests that the holding of Prince represents a substantial departure from past decisions in two respects: first, the plaintiffs alleged that their privacy was invaded when information was communicated to only one other person, and second, the invasion of the privacy of one spouse served as the basis for a claim of the other spouse. This apparent departure of Prince from prior decisions is discussed in the context of a physician\u27s duty of confidentiality and defendant\u27s breach of that confidence

Soft systems methodology: a context within a 50-year retrospective of OR/MS

Soft systems methodology (SSM) has been used in the practice of operations research and management science OR/MS) since the early 1970s. In the 1990s, it emerged as a viable academic discipline. Unfortunately, its proponents consider SSM and traditional systems thinking to be mutually exclusive. Despite the differences claimed by SSM proponents between the two, they have been complementary. An extensive sampling of the OR/MS literature over its entire lifetime demonstrates the richness with which the non-SSM literature has been addressing the very same issues as does SSM

The Strict Ohio Supreme Court Decision in Biddle: Third Party Law Firm Held Liable for Inducing Disclosure of Medical Information

Victims of unauthorized disclosures of medical information have enjoyed strict protection by state and federal courts. This is because secrecy is considered a sacred requirement in order to foster honesty and cooperation between a physician and patient. Confidentiality is considered such a vital ingredient to the physician-patient relationship by the medical profession that it is addressed in the oath, which is a prerequisite to admittance into the field of medicine: All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or outside of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal. The assurance of secrecy is, thus, ingrained in public policy and medical ethics and not in the archaic whims of the common law. The importance of this public policy and the confidentiality between physician and patient has increased the growing concern in Ohio and throughout the nation regarding the unauthorized release of medical information to third parties for approximately the last thirty years

The Strict Ohio Supreme Court Decision in Biddle: Third Party Law Firm Held Liable for Inducing Disclosure of Medical Information

Victims of unauthorized disclosures of medical information have enjoyed strict protection by state and federal courts. This is because secrecy is considered a sacred requirement in order to foster honesty and cooperation between a physician and patient. Confidentiality is considered such a vital ingredient to the physician-patient relationship by the medical profession that it is addressed in the oath, which is a prerequisite to admittance into the field of medicine: All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or outside of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal. The assurance of secrecy is, thus, ingrained in public policy and medical ethics and not in the archaic whims of the common law. The importance of this public policy and the confidentiality between physician and patient has increased the growing concern in Ohio and throughout the nation regarding the unauthorized release of medical information to third parties for approximately the last thirty years