stating that the exemption in the Iowa Freedom of Information Act for "hospital records" and "medical records" of a "patient or former patient, including outpatient," did not apply to "county home" records in possession of the Governor's Office because the documents, which addressed the involuntary sterilization of the plaintiff, were neither compiled for diagnosis or treatment purposes by hospital or medical personnel nor maintained as records of a hospital or physician
How later courts described this case
- stating that the exemption in the Iowa Freedom of Information Act for "hospital records" and "medical records" of a "patient or former patient, including outpatient," did not apply to "county home" records in possession of the Governor's Office because the documents, which addressed the involuntary sterilization of the plaintiff, were neither compiled for diagnosis or treatment purposes by hospital or medical personnel nor maintained as records of a hospital or physician
- interpreting "medical records" as "documents . . . compiled for diagnostic or treatment purposes by hospital or medical personnel [or] maintained as records of a hospital or physician" (citations omitted)
- no liability in invasion of privacy action for disclosures of matters of public record which are of legitimate public concern
- judgment may be affirmed on grounds rejected by the trial court as well as on the ground accepted
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
LARSON, Justice
(dissenting).
I join the dissent of Justice McGiverin as to Division II of the plurality opinion. I dissent separately as to Division I.
Under the reasoning of Division I, the information found in the offices of the governor and the Jasper County auditor are “public records” under our freedom of information act and therefore proper subjects of publication. I believe that even if section 68A.2, The Code, would otherwise be available to permit publication of these items of “public” information, they are medical records within the exception to the disclosure act. It is probably true that they are not “medical records” in the traditional sense; and it may be conceded as the plurality contends that they were “neither compiled by a hospital or medical personnel nor maintained as records of a hospital or physician.” However, the statute does not impose any such restrictions, and I believe it would be inconsistent with the spirit and context of the act for us to impose them. If the items of information here are “records” under the act as contended by the plurality, it is only necessary to determine whether they are medical records for purposes of the exception. They are “medical” records if they pertain to “condition, diagnosis, care or treatment.” § 68A.7(2), The Code. These records here did pertain to medical treatment of the plaintiff. She was sterilized by surgical procedure.
The underpinning of this statutory exception is, I believe, a recognition of the deeply personal and sensitive nature of medical information. This exception should be interpreted to effect this strong policy consideration. Dean Wigmore, while criticizing the analogous doctor-patient privilege, recognized some justification for the privilege in sex-related medical evidence. 8 J. Wig-more, Evidence in Trials at Common Law § 2380(a), at 830 (McNaughton rev. ed. 1961). Justice Blackmun, in advocating a broad scope of the medical file exception to the federal disclosure act, also recognized the strong policy considerations attending dissemination of medical information, saying:
It is almost inconceivable to me that the Court is willing today to attach the qualification phrase to medical files and thereby open to the public what has been recognized as almost the essence of ultimate privacy. The law’s long established physician-patient privilege establishes this. Anyone who has had even minimal *306 contact with the practice of medicine surely cannot agree with this extension by judicial construction .
Department of the Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 387-88 , 96 S.Ct. 1592, 1611 , 48 L.Ed.2d 11, 36 (1976) (dissenting opinion).
I believe the publication here could reasonably have been found by a factfinder to improperly invade plaintiff’s privacy, and that chapter 68A does not place the underlying information into the public domain so as to emasculate the right to pursue that claim without a trial. I would reverse and remand for trial on the merits.
LeGRAND, J., joins in this dissent.