Reproductive Services, Inc. v. Walker, District Judge

Background

A woman, Claudia E. Lott, sued a clinic or doctor who performed her abortion, accusing the provider of medical malpractice and of violating Texas’s consumer-protection law by misrepresenting care and failing to disclose risks. The State of Texas intervened under that law. Mrs. Lott subpoenaed medical records for five named patients and for any other patients with major complications or who received certain medications. The provider asked the trial court to quash the subpoena as an invasion of patient privacy. The trial judge ordered the records turned over but allowed patient names to be deleted. The provider then sought emergency review in the Texas Supreme Court and asked this Court to stay that court’s action.

Reasoning

The central question was whether the names of abortion patients can be obtained in civil discovery where there is not already an agreement protecting those names. Justice Brennan said the question is serious and noted that four Justices would likely want to review it, but he concluded the issue was not actually before this Court. The trial court had permitted deletion of names, and Texas represented it would enter a protective order to safeguard patient privacy. Because those protections were offered, the Court found no irreparable privacy injury requiring an emergency stay and therefore dissolved the earlier stay on the condition that a protective order be agreed.

Real world impact

The ruling lets the State proceed to get clinic records so long as patients’ identities are protected by deletion or a protective order. The decision is procedural, not a final ruling on whether such names should ever be disclosed, and the clinic may seek a new emergency stay if a protective order is not entered.