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NEW YORK (AP) - A $200 million lawsuit against the CVS drugstore chain, filed by an AIDS patient who says the company bought his medical information without his consent, will proceed as a class action, a judge said.
State Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos, who granted the lawsuit class action status Thursday, had already decided on March 1 that claims for deceptive practices, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of implied contract and aiding and inducing a breach of duty could continue.
The plaintiff, not identified by name in the lawsuit, says that when CVS bought his former pharmacy, Trio Drugs, in 1998, CVS also bought Trio's list of patients and their prescriptions. In doing this, he says, the companies violated their duty of confidentiality.
Trio was one of a number of pharmacy companies CVS purchased. Under CVS's so-called file buy agreement, court papers say, the chain required Trio to refrain from telling customers that CVS was also buying their medication records.
The plaintiff, who is seeking actual and punitive damages, said class members were damaged when CVS disseminated personal medical information to its 4,100 stores. CVS is the second-largest pharmacy chain in the country, behind Walgreen.
In his March 1 decision, the judge wrote, ``Because pharmacists have a certain amount of discretion, and an obligation to collect otherwise confidential medical information, this court must find that customers can reasonably expect that the information will remain confidential.''
In approving the lawsuit as a statewide class action, the judge said the number of potential members of the class ``lies somewhere in the thousands if not the hundreds of thousands. Several hundred customer prescription files were transferred by Trio Drugs alone.''
The plaintiff's attorney, Richard Lubarsky, said he was pleased with the judge's rulings.
``This is an industrywide practice that had never been challenged,'' he said. ``We're pleased that the judge upheld the rights of customers.''
Lubarsky said the judge's ruling ``recognizes the importance of the privacy issue and the fact that so many people are affected.''
The director of corporate communications for CVS, Todd Andrews, issued a statement noting that the judge had found that CVS did not violate any pharmacy or privacy statutes when it purchased Trio's assets.
``We welcome the opportunity to present the facts of this case
and are confident that once the court has had a chance to review
the facts, the remaining portions of this complaint will also be
dismissed,'' the statement said.
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