Duane Morris Class Action Review - 2023 - Report - Page 141
court held that the contract was also not substantively unconscionable under California
law. For these reasons, the court denied the plaintiffs’ renewed motion for class
certification. Id. at *6.
Finally, in Vigil, et al. v. Muir Medical Group IPA, Inc., 84 Cal. App. 5th 197 (Cal. App.
1st Dist. 2022), the plaintiff filed a class action alleging that the defendant failed to
secure patients' personal information, thereby allowing a former employee to download
private medical information belonging to over 5,000 patients and take it with her when
she left her employment in violation of the Confidentiality of Medical Information Act
(CMIA). The plaintiff filed a motion for class certification and the trial court denied the
motion. The trial court ruled that each class member would have to show that the
confidential nature of his or her medical information had been breached by an
unauthorized party such that common issues would not predominate. On appeal, the
court of appeal affirmed the trial court’s ruling. The court of appeal explained that a
CMIA claim requires a showing that the confidential nature of the plaintiff's medical
information was breached, which requires that an unauthorized party has “actually
viewed” the information. Id. at 207. The defendant asserted that the individualized
issues of fact and law would predominate over the common questions because each
putative class member would have to show that an unauthorized person viewed his or
her confidential medical information. Id. The court of appeal concluded the trial court did
not err in its application of the CMIA, and the allegations raised questions regarding
breach of confidentiality and causation that required individualized inquiries of the
putative class members. Id. at 208. The court of appeal further determined that since
the plaintiff failed to establish that breach of confidentiality could be established on a
class-wide basis, the question then was whether the common questions predominate
over those individualized questions. The court of appeal agreed with the trial court that
class treatment was not warranted because individualized inquiries would be required to
prove liability and damages for each of the putative class members. For these reasons,
the court of appeal affirmed the trial court’s ruling.
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Duane Morris Class Action Review – 2023
