Opinion
CV196093104
01-14-2020
Calvin Haughton Individually and as Administrator of the Estate of Alethea v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc. et al.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
Judge (with first initial, no space for Sullivan, Dorsey, and Walsh): Abrams, James W., J.
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION RE DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO STRIKE (#101.00)
James W. Abrams, Judge
This matter was brought by Complaint dated May 3, 2019 and involves the suicide of the plaintiff’s decedent allegedly caused by the unauthorized disclosure of personal information to her by the defendants. The defendants filed a Motion to Strike dated July 11, 2019 and the plaintiff filed an Objection dated September 12, 2019. The court heard oral argument on October 7, 2019.
I
FACTS
The plaintiff, Calvin Haughton individually and in his capacity as Administrator of the Estate of Althea Haughton, his late wife, filed a six-count Complaint against the defendants, CVS Pharmacy, Inc. (CVS) and Eliza Saranitzky alleging the following facts. Count one sounds in negligence as to the defendant CVS. It alleges that on or about October 26, 2017, at approximately 9:24 p.m., the plaintiff’s decedent Althea J. Haughton committed suicide by taking an overdose of her prescription medication when the defendants wrongfully disclosed to her information regarding a one-month-old child that the plaintiff had with another woman. The disclosures took place on December 24, 2015, and January 2, 2016. The defendants committed a HIPAA violation by disclosing this information to the decedent, as she was not the parent or legal guardian of the child and was not legally entitled to know the information in question. As a result of this disclosure, the decedent was disheartened and humiliated emotionally, and psychologically distressed, which caused her to commit suicide. The defendant had, and breached, a duty of care not to disclose this information to the decedent. The defendant knew or should have known that this wrongful disclosure of information would cause the decedent emotional distress, and psychological and mental harm and, as a result of the defendant’s negligence, the decedent committed suicide.
Count two of the plaintiff’s complaint alleges a HIPAA violation on the part of CVS based on the same facts as count one. It additionally alleges that the defendant had a duty of care not to disclose the information in question to anyone not legally entitled to it pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1320d-6, and the defendant violated the HIPAA laws when its employee disclosed the information to the decedent. Count three sounds in breach of contract against CVS. It alleges that the defendant had an implied contract not to disclose the aforementioned information to anyone not entitled to have it, and that the defendant breached the implied contract. Counts four, five, and six reallege these three claims against the defendant Elisa Saranitzky, who was employed at CVS.
II
DISCUSSION
"The proper method to challenge the legal sufficiency of a complaint is to make a motion to strike prior to trial." Gulack v. Gulack, 30 Conn.App. 305, 309, 620 A.2d 181 (1993). "[A] motion to strike challenges the legal sufficiency of a pleading and, consequently, requires no factual findings by the trial court ... [The court] construe[s] the complaint in the manner most favorable to sustaining its legal sufficiency ... Thus, [i]f facts provable in the complaint would support a cause of action, the motion to strike must be denied ... Moreover, [the court notes] that [w]hat is necessarily implied [in an allegation] need not be expressly alleged ... It is fundamental that in determining the sufficiency of a complaint challenged by a defendant’s motion to strike, all well-pleaded facts and those facts necessarily implied from the allegations are taken as admitted ... Indeed, pleadings must be construed broadly and realistically, rather than narrowly and technically." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Geysen v. Securitas Security Services USA, Inc., 322 Conn. 385, 398, 142 A.3d 227 (2016). "A motion to strike admits all facts well pleaded; it does not admit legal conclusions or the truth or accuracy of opinions stated in the pleadings." (Emphasis in original; internal quotation marks omitted.) Faulkner v. United Technologies Corp., 240 Conn. 576, 588, 693 A.2d 293 (1997).
A) Negligence Claims
Counts one and four of the plaintiff’s complaint allege negligence as to CVS and Elisa Saranitzky, respectively. Construing the plaintiff’s allegations as direct negligence claims, the defendants first argue that these counts should be stricken because the defendants owed no duty to the decedent under the circumstances. Construing the allegations as sounding in bystander emotional distress, the defendants argue that the plaintiff cannot satisfy the required elements to support such claims.
Our Supreme Court has held "that the nature of the physician-patient relationship warrants recognition of a common-law cause of action for breach of the duty of confidentiality in the context of that relationship." Byrne v. Avery Center for Obstetrics & Gynecology, P.C., 327 Conn. 540. 567, 175 A.3d 1 (2018). Therefore, "unauthorized disclosure of confidential information obtained in the course of that relationship for the purpose of treatment gives rise to a cause of action sounding in tort against the health care provider, unless the disclosure is otherwise allowed by law." Id., 567-68. The defendants argue that only the minor’s information was released, and not that of the decedent or the plaintiff. Accordingly, the defendants contend that any duty was owed to the minor, and not the plaintiff. The plaintiff’s complaint alleges that the defendants breached the duty of care not to disclose information regarding the minor to the decedent. See Pl. Comp. ¶6. The confidential information that is alleged to have been improperly disclosed belonged to the minor, and the corresponding duty of confidentiality likewise belonged to the minor. The defendants therefore owed no duty to the plaintiff under this theory of negligence.
Alternatively, the plaintiff’s allegations could be construed as claims of bystander emotional distress. Such a claim "requires proof of the following: (1) the bystander must be closely related to the victim; (2) the bystander’s emotional injury must be caused by the contemporaneous sensory perception of the event that causes the injury; (3) the injury must be substantial, resulting in [either] death or serious physical injury; and (4) the bystander must have sustained a serious emotional injury that is beyond that which would be anticipated in a disinterested witness and which is not the result of an abnormal response." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Sepega v. DeLaura, 326 Conn. 788, 800 n.6, 167 A.3d 916 (2017). In the present case, as the defendants argue, the plaintiff’s complaint contains no allegation that the minor suffered a serious physical injury.
The plaintiff contends that, as father of the minor child, he steps into the patient-provider relationship until the minor becomes an adult. The plaintiff, however, has brought the present action in his personal capacity and in his capacity as administrator of the decedent’s estate, and the minor child is not a named party. "The next friend of an infant cannot maintain a suit in his own name, but the suit must be brought in the name of the infant." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Fotheringhame v. New Haven, Superior Court, judicial district of New Haven, Docket No. CV-065007577-S (June 7, 2007, A. Robinson, J.). Accordingly, the plaintiff’s negligence claims are legally insufficient and the motion to strike counts one and four is granted.
B) HIPAA Violations
Counts two and five of the plaintiff’s complaint allege HIPAA violations on the part of the defendants. The defendants argue that these counts must be stricken because there is no private cause of action under HIPAA. "It is by now well settled that the statutory structure of HIPAA ... precludes implication of a private right of action. [Section] 1320d-6 [of title 42 of the United States Code] expressly provides a method for enforcing its prohibition upon use or disclosure of individual’s health information- the punitive imposition of fines and imprisonment for violations." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Byrne v. Avery Center for Obstetrics & Gynecology, P.C., supra, 327 Conn. 555. A cause of action for the violation of HIPAA rules is therefore unavailable at law. The plaintiff contends that HIPAA does not preempt claims for the breach of a healthcare provider’s duty of confidentiality. It is true that our Supreme Court recognized such a cause of action in Byrne, as discussed previously in this memorandum. That is not, however, what the plaintiff alleges in counts two and five of his complaint. Counts two and five allege damages based only on violations of HIPAA. Accordingly, these counts are not legally sufficient and the motion to strike counts two and five is granted.
C) Breach of Contract Claims
Counts three and six of the plaintiff’s complaint allege breach of an implied contract on the part of the defendants. The defendants argue that these counts constitute improperly pleaded tort claims; and that the plaintiff lacks privity to assert a claim under any contract. "The term implied contract ... often leads to confusion because it can refer to an implied in fact contract or to an implied in law contract. An implied in fact contract is the same as an express contract, except that assent is not expressed in words, but is implied from the conduct of the parties ... On the other hand, an implied in law contract is not a contract, but an obligation which the law creates out of the circumstances present, even though a party did not assume the obligation ... It is based on equitable principles to operate whenever justice requires compensation to be made ... An implied in law contract may arise due to one party being unjustly enriched to the detriment of the other party ... Accordingly, an implied in law contract is another name for a claim for unjust enrichment." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Vertex, Inc. v. Waterbury, 278 Conn. 557, 57374, 898 A.2d 178 (2006).
"[T]ort claims cloaked in contractual language are, as a matter of law, not breach of contract claims ... To ensure that plaintiffs do not attempt to convert negligence claims into breach of contract claims by talismanically invoking contract language in [the] complaint ... reviewing courts may pierce the pleading veil by looking beyond the language used in the complaint to determine the true basis of the claim." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Meyers v. Livingston, Adler, Pulda. Meiklejohn & Kelly, P.C., 311 Conn. 282, 290-91, 87 A.3d 534 (2014). Our Supreme Court has concluded "that [a] trial court properly had stricken the plaintiff’s claim for breach of contract ... because the claim, while cast in contract language, alleged a personal injury and sought damages for pain and suffering." Pinette v. McLaughlin, 96 Conn.App. 769, 773, 901 A.2d 1269, cert. denied, 280 Conn. 929, 909 A.2d 958 (2006). Courts have "focused on the injury alleged and the nature of the relief sought to define the cause of action." Id., 774. "The usual recovery for breach of a contract is the contract price or the lost profits therefrom ... whereas a cause of action in negligence arising from tortious conduct subjects the tortfeasor to responsibility for the payment of money damages for the injuries sustained by the plaintiff because of the tortious conduct ..." (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Brusby v. Metropolitan District, 160 Conn.App. 638, 668, 127 A.3d 257 (2015).
The plaintiff alleges that the defendants had an implied contract not to disclose, the information in question to anyone not legally entitled to have it. He does not, however, allege facts giving rise to the formation of a contract. The injuries alleged by the plaintiff in his breach of contract claims are "emotional distress, psychological and mental harm" that caused the decedent to commit suicide. As relief the plaintiff seeks damages, and such other relief as the court deems fair and equitable. The plaintiff’s alleged injuries are substantially the same as those set forth in his negligence claim, and he does not seek to recover a contract price or lost profits. Consequently, although the plaintiff has cast counts three and six of his complaint in contractual language he is seeking in substance a recovery in tort. Accordingly, counts three and six are legally insufficient and the motion to strike them is granted.
III
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the defendants’ motion to strike all six counts of the plaintiff’s Complaint is hereby granted.
Although not specifically alleged, the defendants additionally argue that the plaintiff’s claims for wrongful death must be stricken because the decedent’s suicide was not foreseeable. The court, however, need not reach this issue as all six counts of the complaint have been stricken. See Soto v. Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC, 331 Conn. 53, 104, 202 A.3d 262 (2019) ("Connecticut’s wrongful death statute does not create a new cause of action, independent of any claims that the decedent might have had during his or her life. Rather, the wrongful death statute merely allows the administrator of an estate to append to an already valid claim an additional element of damages consisting of costs associated with the decedent’s death.").