United States Eighth Circuit

In a veteran's action alleging that defendant-physician improperly revealed private medical and personal information, particularly his HIV positive status, to plaintiff's union representative in violation of the Privacy Act, summary judgment for the VA is affirmed over primary claims that: 1) a question of material fact existed as to whether the physician actually retrieved the information from his medical file prior to the disclosure; and 2) the retrieval rule should not apply when the contents of a record are disclosed by the person who prepared the record.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/07/2008
• Published 03/07/2008

Judges

• MURPHY, Circuit Judge., Before MURPHY, HANSEN, and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Eighth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Katherine Logan MacKinnon, argued, St. Louis Park, MN (Denise Y. Tataryn, Minneapolis, MN, on brief); (Bebe J. Anderson, Jennifer Sinton, and David S. Buckel, New York, NY, on the brief), in support of appellant for Amici Curiae, AID Greater Des Moines Inc.; (M. William O'Brien, Meg Luger-Nikolai, and Lynn Michelson, Minneapolis, MN, on the brief), in support of appellant for Amici Curiae, Minnesota AIDS Project.


• For Appellees:
  
• Friedrich Anson Paul Siekert, AUSA, argued, Minneapolis, MN, for appellees.