More Vanderbilt patients join class action lawsuit to release medical records of transgender patients

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – Nearly a year after the first wave of class action lawsuits was filed against Vanderbilt University Medical Center, more and more patients are joining the litigation.

In July 2023, two VUMC patients sued the hospital because they said it failed to protect their personal health information.

The patients filed a class action lawsuit against Vanderbilt in the Chancery Court of Davidson County, 20th Judicial District.

The lawsuit came after the Tennessee Attorney General requested information about patients at the Vanderbilt Transgender Health Clinic. The patients claim Vanderbilt failed to comply with federal law or its own privacy policy when it released health information on more than 100 patients without notification.

“Your health, your sexual health, your sexual partners – all of these things can be discussed with doctors, and the fact that this information was shared with a government agency without notice or attempts to anonymize it really is deeply troubling to our clients,” Tricia Herzfeld said in a previous interview with News 2.

Herzfeld is with the HSG law firm and is one of the lawyers representing the patients.

More than a dozen patients have now joined the lawsuit, claiming the hospital disclosed some of the most intimate details of their personal lives, including images of body parts, an unknown gender identity, mental health information and the identities of domestic partners.

Two different types of class action lawsuits have been filed, one of which is from patients who claim they were told their records had been turned over to the Attorney General, but later learned their records had never been released. They now claim this has caused them “unnecessary emotional distress.”

“Right now, we’re focused on Vanderbilt’s duty to its patients. It was its duty to inform patients about what was going on and to protect that information, and they failed to do that,” Herzfeld said.

The information was provided in response to a civil discovery request (CID) from the Attorney General’s office, which related to a “billing issue” regarding transgender health care in Tennessee, according to the complaint. A spokesperson for the Attorney General’s office said the investigation was “directed solely to VUMC and related providers and not to patients or their families,” but the lawsuit says Vanderbilt should have “denied the Attorney General’s request for personally identifiable information.”

In a statement from VUMC regarding the recent lawsuits, the hospital stated:

“No new claims were asserted in this action. We continue to believe that VUMC acted appropriately and in accordance with state and federal laws.”