New York Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul was one of the most talked about people during the previous offseason having injured his right hand in a fireworks accident on July 4th. Severely damaged, rumors swirled that he had his right index finger amputated. ESPN’s Adam Schefter first reported the news, as well as the follow ups, taking things a step further by tweeting a photo of Pierre-Paul’s medical record report to the public, evidence of the amputation.
On Wednesday the two-time Pro Bowler filed a lawsuit against Schefter in Miami-Dade County on the basis of Schefter’s tweet violating his privacy in accordance with Florida’s statute 456.057, which prohibits the sharing of a patient’s medical records with anyone not directly involved with the care of the patient.
Schefter, who has 4.5 million followers on Twitter, had the tweet with Pierre-Paul’s medical records retweeted over 7,600 times.
According to lawsuit:
This action arises out of ESPN reporter Schefter’s blatant disregard for the private and confidential nature of Plaintiff’s medical records. all so Schefter could show the world that he had ‘supporting proof’ of a surgical procedure. Schefter improperly obtained Plaintiff’s medical records from a hospital and then, out of a selfish desire to ‘break news,’ electronically blasted the records to his approximately 4 million Twitter followers and made it available to anyone worldwide with Internet access.
For his part, Schefter spoke on the situation during an interview with Sports Illustrated, and excerpts from that conversation were mentioned in the lawsuit.
In a day and age in which pictures and videos tell stories and confirm facts, in which sources and their motives are routinely questioned, and in which reporters strive to be as accurate as possible, this was the ultimate supporting proof. In hindsight I could and should have done even more here due to the sensitivity of the situation. We’ve got a great group of editors and production staff, and I could have leaned on them even more. … On this one, there should have been even more discussion than there was due to the sensitivity of the story; that’s on me.
It will be interesting to see how this situation plays out.
