Medical Worker Wants Home Insurance to Cover Her Against Patients’ Data Claims

A Connecticut clinical social worker believes her homeowners insurer should defend and indemnify her against claims she violated patients’ privacy by accessing and sharing their private medical information. She says the lawsuit against her triggers her homeowners coverage because the alleged violation took place not as part of her job responsibilities but “purely for personal reasons.”

Carrie Stanley has asked a federal court to declare that Vermont Mutual Insurance must cover her against the lawsuit brought against her and Yale Medical School by a couple undergoing in vitro fertilization treatments at a Yale medical facility.

In the underlying complaint filed in Connecticut Superior Court in May, the couple alleges that they have suffered injuries, damages, and losses, including personal injury, bodily injury, bodily harm, bodily illness, including anxiety, stress, pain and anguish, and a shock to their nervous systems.

Vermont Mutual maintains that the claims made against Stanley are not covered by her homeowners policies that were in effect during the period. The insurer has declined to offer either defense or indemnity coverage for the claims.

Vermont Mutual’s homeowner’s policies say that the insurer will pay for damages because of “bodily injury” up to a $1 million limit of liability. The insurer also promises to provide a defense “even if the suit is groundless, false or fraudulent.”

The Vermont Mutual homeowners policies also include an endorsement amending the definition of “bodily injury” to include “personal injury,” which it explains means injury arising out of one or more of the following offenses: false arrest, detention or imprisonment, malicious prosecution; libel, slander or defamation of character; or invasion of privacy, wrongful eviction or wrongful entry.

An exclusion for “expected or intended” injury is inapplicable to the personal injury coverage.

Stanley argues that her insurance policies cover the lawsuit because it is a claim against her for damages because of “bodily injury” and because the plaintiffs seek damages for “personal injury.”

The patients’ lawsuit alleges that on various occasions from 2020 to 2023, Stanley used the electronic medical record system maintained by Yale and the credentials Yale provided to access and view their confidential medical records including information that they were receiving in vitro fertility treatments. Stanley never provided any care or treatment to them and did not have their permission to access their information, the suit continues. They further allege that sometime during the period, Stanley disseminated this confidential information to other persons who knew them.

Stanley’s argument in favor of insurance coverage rests on the grounds that she knew the plaintiffs and “accessed their information purely for personal reasons unrelated to her employment with Yale and not for professional or business reasons of any type.” She adds that the plaintiffs’ complaint does not allege that she accessed and disseminated the information as part of her job. Furthermore, Yale has refused to defend Stanley because she was “not acting within the course and scope of her employment with Yale or acting in any medical-related capacity.”

For these reasons, Stanley maintains, Vermont Mutual has a duty to defend and indemnify her for any injuries or damages claimed in the lawsuit.

Stanley filed her motion for declaratory judgment on July 25. Vermont Mutual has not yet responded.