Suzanne M. Utke

We received a defense verdict in a five-day jury trial in Philadelphia County involving multiple defendants. We defended the medical malpractice claim alleging a violation of HIPAA privacy and an intrusion upon plaintiff's seclusion resulting in his eviction and severe emotional distress. The plaintiff claimed an anonymous email he sent to our client, a social worker, purporting to seek mental health therapy was a "mental health record" and subject to HIPAA privacy laws. When it was discovered that the email was from the same individual stalking and harassing the client’s sister who worked at the apartment complex where he lived, our client provided the email to her sister, who then gave it to her employer to support legal action against the plaintiff. The email was used in an eviction proceeding, and the plaintiff claimed that the disclosure of the email violated his privacy rights under HIPAA and that he suffered humiliation and severe emotional distress as a result. The claim involved counts for medical and legal professional negligence, negligence per se, intrusion upon seclusion, conspiracy to commit an intrusion upon seclusion, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and a plea for punitive damages. The initial demand of $5 million was reduced to $125,000 before trial. No offer was made and a unanimous defense verdict was rendered in less than three hours.

We won a very hard-fought motion for summary judgment based on the plaintiff’s failure to prosecute in a matter that is now 10 years old. Suzanne won oral argument to dismiss the suit, based on the plaintiff’s failure to prosecute his case, by proving both actual prejudice to the client, a psychologist, and an inexcusable seven-year delay in any activity by the plaintiff. This medical malpractice claim was brought in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and was related to a psychological evaluation conducted of the plaintiff’s three children, whom he physically and psychologically abused for years.   

We won a summary judgment motion in a failure to diagnose breast cancer case on behalf of an imaging company. The plaintiff had four mammograms over a four year period, all of which read as negative for abnormalities by four radiologists. At the end of the fourth year, the plaintiff was hospitalized as a result of a fall, during which she was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer. In the resulting lawsuit, our client was named for theories of corporate and vicarious liability. After complex discovery, the motion for summary judgment was finally granted, with prejudice, for our client.