Pharmacies, “as a matter of business routine and federal law, receive prescriber-identifying information when processing prescriptions.” This “[k]nowledge of a physician’s prescription practices—called prescriber-identifying information,’” enables marketers representing pharmaceutical drug manufacturers (Detailers) to better “ascertain which doctors are likely to be interested in a particular drug and how best to present a particular sales message.” …Read more

Metoclopramide is a drug commonly used to treat digestive tract problems such as diabetic gastroparesis and gastroesophageal reflux disorder. In 1980, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first approved metoclopramide tablets under the brand name Reglan. Generic manufacturers also began producing metoclopramide five years later. Over its usage history, evidence accumulated that long-term metoclopramide use …Read more

This case was about California’s prisons which at the time housed 156,000 prisoners, two fold of the number they were designed to house. The plaintiffs previously had brought two separate Federal actions. In 1990, one of the district courts had decided that mentally ill prisoners received inadequate medical care; in 2001, the other district court …Read more

The Appellant, Seaton, an inmate, brought suit against the director of the California Department of Mental Health, the administrator of a state hospital, and two psychologists, alleging that they violated his constitutional right to privacy when they examined and communicated their opinions about his medical records to the district attorney’s office in the period before …Read more

This report addresses the admissibility of a petition that alleged the United States failed to fulfill its obligations under the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man (the Declaration) and the American Convention on Human Rights (the Convention), including protection of the right to health and equality before law. Mossville, Louisiana is a …Read more

The Petitioner, Lawrence Amaechi Eneh, was a native and citizen of Nigeria. He had contracted HIV while working in a nursing home in the United States. He was living with HIV-related illness, Capsis Sarcoma and Valley Fever, a disease of the lungs, at the time of the proceedings. The Petitioner was convicted for the sale …Read more

Jamey Wilkins (hereinafter “the Plaintiff”) filed an excessive force suit against Gaddy (hereinafter “the Defendant”) under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution.  The Plaintiff was a state prisoner in North Carolina when he had asked a correctional officer, the Defendant, for a grievance form, and the …Read more

The Plaintiffs, aged, blind or disabled persons and legal resident aliens of New York State, brought these proceedings against the Commissioner of the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) after they became ineligible for Supplementary Security Income (SSI) from the federal government and Additional State Payments (ASP) provided by the State. …Read more

The Respondent, Glenn, an employee at a Sears retail store, sought federal-court review under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) of Sears’ insurer, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MetLife), due to its denial to extend payment of her disability benefits. MetLife was the administrator and the insurer of Sears’ long-term disability insurance plan, …Read more

The Appellant, Jane Doe, brought proceedings against Betty and Kirk Dilling, the parents of her late fiancé, Albert Dilling. She alleged that they had intentionally and falsely stated to her that Albert was not infected with the HIV virus and/or suffered from AIDS when “they knew that, in fact, he was HIV-positive and had AIDS.” …Read more

This report addresses the admissibility of a petition that alleged the United States failed to fulfill its obligations under the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man (the Declaration). Petitioners included the Legal Aid Society and the International Human Rights Clinic at Washington College of Law. Petitioners alleged the United States violated the …Read more

The Respondents, doctors who performed second-trimester abortions, brought suit challenging the constitutionality of the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (the Act). The Act banned second trimester abortions using the “intact Dilation & Extraction” (intact D&E) method in which the doctor removed the fetus intact, or largely intact, rather than breaking the fetus …Read more

The Appellant, Panetti, was convicted of capital murder in a Texas state court and sentenced to death. After the execution date was set, Panetti brought proceedings claiming that he was incompetent to be executed. The federal district court stayed Panetti’s execution in order to allow the state courts to adjudicate Panetti’s claim of mental incompetence. …Read more

Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs (the Alliance) was an organization that advocated for an expanded access for terminally ill patients of experimental drugs that weren’t yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), due to the fact that the drug approval process required clinical trials of three to four phases to …Read more

The state of Oregon legalized a physician-assisted suicide law. This law exempts state-licensed physicians who “dispense or prescribe a lethal dose of drugs upon the request of a terminally ill patient” from civil or criminal liability. The law required that the patient must have a diagnosis of an incurable and irreversible disease that reasonably will cause …Read more

The Cincinnati Health Department (CHD) refused a request from a reporter from the Cincinnati Enquirer (the Enquirer) for “copies of the 343 lead citations and any others that were issued between 1994 and the present.” The lead citations were lead-contamination notices issued to owners of units reported to be the residences of children whose blood …Read more

This case concerned a challenge to a rule promulgated by the United States Department of Health and Human Services pursuant to the administrative simplification provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The original privacy rule “required covered entities to seek individual consent to use or disclose health information in all …Read more

The Appellants, Leonel and others, were persons living with HIV. They applied for and were granted offers for flight attendant positions with American Airlines (American). Upon discovery of their HIV-positive status, American rescinded Appellants’ job offers, citing their failure to disclose information during their medical examinations. The Appellants had originally been given conditional offers of …Read more

The Appellant, Douglas, brought suit claiming that the Respondent, Dobbs, an Assistant District Attorney, violated her constitutional right to privacy by approving a police search of her pharmacy records. The search was initiated after a police sergeant learned from Douglas’ physician that he suspected Douglas was abusing prescription pain medication by forging prescriptions, running through …Read more

Gary and Renna Pehle (“Appellants”), husband and wife, applied for life insurance with the Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company (“Farm Bureau”) in Wyoming in 1999. As part of the application process, the Pehle’s submitted a blood test. The test was contracted to LabOne, an independent company located in Kansas. Both Appellants tested positive for Human …Read more

The plaintiff- Jackson Women’s Health Organisation filed a motion challenging a provision in the Mississippi Code stating, “abortion procedures after the first-trimester shall be performed only at an ambulatory surgical facility or hospitals licensed to perform that service, and for related purposes. The plaintiff alleged that this provision had effectively banned it from performing abortions …Read more

The petitioners were disabled individuals and their companions who purchased tickets in 1998 or 1999 for round-trip cruises on the Norwegian Seaor the Norwegian Star, with departures from Houston, Texas. The respondent was Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd. (NCL). NCL was a Bermuda corporation with a principal place of business in Miami, Florida and operated cruise …Read more

Plaintiffs, Ashley Pelman and Jazlen Bradley, brought suit against defendant, McDonald’s Corporation, for violating Section 349 and 350 of the New York General Business Law, known commonly as the New York Protection Act between 1987 and 2002 on three counts. Count I claimed that the effect of McDonald’s promotions was to create the false impression …Read more

The Respondent, the Attorney General of the United States, appealed a district court order quashing a subpoena that commanded Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH) to produce the medical records of certain patients. The records were to be used in an upcoming suit challenging the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. The records contained …Read more

Plaintiff, a prisoner, filed suit alleging violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and of the Eight Amendment as a result of Defendants’ withdrawing his prescribed medications. Upon entry into Georgia State Prison, Plaintiff’s medical records indicated he suffered from HIV and hepatitis. Plaintiff was prescribed medications for HIV and hepatitis ten …Read more

This report addresses the admissibility of a petition that alleged the United States failed to fulfill its obligations under the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man (the Declaration). Petitioners were Barristers with Tooks Court, London, a Solicitor with Lovells, London, and representatives of the Federal Defender Program, Atlanta, Georgia. Tracy Lee Housel …Read more

Petitioner, Sell, had a long history of mental illness. In 1998, a federal grand jury issued an indictment charging Sell with attempting to murder an FBI agent who had arrested him in connection with a separate charge of mail fraud and a former employee who planned to testify against him in the upcoming fraud case. …Read more

Plaintiff filed suit alleging that Defendants deprived him of HIV medication on two occasions during his incarceration at the Camp Pharsalia Correctional Facility. The first deprivation occurred in October 1998 and lasted seven days, resulting from a delay in refilling Plaintiff’s prescriptions. The second occurred in January 1999, when Plaintiff’s medication was confiscated during a …Read more

The Appellant, Ophelia Azriel De’lonta (born Michael A. Stokes), a Virginia inmate suffering from gender identity disorder (GID) (also known as gender dysphoria or transsexualism), brought suit against the Respondents, the Director of and doctors at the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC), alleging that they inflicted cruel and unusual punishment on her, in violation of …Read more

The Appellant, Doe, brought an action against his employer, the U.S. Postal Service, for the Postal Service’s disclosure of his HIV status in violation of both the Privacy Act and the Rehabilitation Act. Doe’s status was first revealed to Postal Service officials as part of a request for leave pursuant to the Family and Medical Leave …Read more