Columbus Dispatch...
Inmates suing state for loss of privacy
Records of HIV status open to other prisoners, they say 
November 13, 2011 

At least seven HIV-positive inmates have sued the state, claiming they were ridiculed, harassed and threatened after their medical records were released to the general prison population. 

The lawsuits, filed as recently as last week in the Ohio Court of Claims, stem from an incident in June at the 2,600-inmate Mansfield Correctional Institution. 

Prison officials negligently put a record of inmates being treated for HIV in a place where it could be released to other prisoners, according to the suits that ask for at least $25,000 per inmate. The prisoners say copies were made and are continuing to be circulated. 

The invasion of privacy has had a “disastrous” effect on the inmates, said their Reynoldsburg attorney, Richard Swope. 

“They’re isolated. The prison population doesn’t want a darn thing to do with them,” he said. 

Swope said he has not yet had a chance to conduct depositions or request documents, so it is difficult to know exactly what happened. But he suspects that lists of up to 10 HIV-positive inmates and as many as 10 prisoners with chronic illnesses were left out in a medical unit near June 6, allowing inmate porters to take them and distribute them to the general population. 

Carlo LoParo, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said the prison agency is aware of the lawsuits and is working with the state attorney general’s office to investigate and get ready for court proceedings. 

In an initial response to the suits, the state denied the allegations. It also gave a number of other defenses — that it is immune from liability, that the inmates are not entitled to the damages they seek and that the HIV-positive inmates or other people “for whose conduct (the) defendant cannot be liable” caused the alleged injuries. 

In suits filed in September and October, the prisoners claim they were subjected to hazing, harassment, ridicule, taunts and threats that caused “extreme” emotional distress, anxiety and fear for their safety. 

Swope said one prisoner wrote him a letter saying he no longer has any friends because his HIV status was disclosed. Court of Claims Judge Alan Travis recently set a trial for June. 

If the inmates’ allegations are true, the potential financial hit to the state is unknown because “invasion of privacy cases are hard to evaluate,” Swope said. 

He said he knows of a case in which an inmate’s family found out from a prison that he was HIV-positive despite his not wanting that information disclosed. The U.S. Supreme Court this year agreed to hear the case of an HIV-positive pilot who sued the federal government for emotional distress for mishandling his medical records. 

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