Woman Sues Doctor in Unusual Plastic Surgery Personal Injury Lawsuit for Posting Images of ‘Cocaine Nose’
Plaintiff in unusual plastic surgery personal injury lawsuit says she reasonably expected privacy when she went to get her nose fixed. Instead, it was allegedly put online.
Most of the time in a plastic surgery personal injury lawsuit, patients will sue doctors over surgery that has gone wrong.
For example, this week , a man from Alabama is accusing a team of medics and surgeons of accidentally removing his penis. The accident occurred during what was supposed to be a routine circumcision operation. The defendant is now suing the hospital and all that were involved in the botched surgery.
“My client is devastated,” said Banks’ plastic surgery personal injury lawsuit attorney John Graves. Banks, who is married and does not work due to a disability, did not recall the precise date of the incident but believed it occurred in June, his attorney said. A spokeswoman for the hospital’s parent company said in a statement that Banks’ allegations were without merit. “We intend to defend all counts aggressively,” said Kate DeWitt Darden, spokeswoman for Baptist Health System. The medical malpractice lawsuit does not specify a monetary value of the damages. The hospital, the Simon-Williamson Clinic, Urology Centers of Alabama and two doctors are named as defendants in the plastic surgery personal injury lawsuit
Another example of a plastic surgery personal injury lawsuit we have seen in recent news would be this transgender woman who posed as a doctor and then injected a toxic mixture of cement, mineral oil and tire sealant into her “patients” was arrested on Monday over more allegations of medical malpractice.
However, the plastic surgery personal injury lawsuit that caught the attention of the public two days ago is an entirely different lawsuit.
Sabrina Kropp says in a personal injury lawsuit that she went to plastic surgeon Dr. Robert Walton, expressing a need to have her nose perfected, and that, as many plastic surgeons do, he took before-and-after photographs to show just how skillful he is at straightening the crooked and smoothing the wrinkled.
Kropp, 55, says the images were taken in 2004 but that when Walton opened a new practice, Plastic Surgery Chicago LLC in 2013, her features appeared on its Web site, accompanied by the riveting headline: “Cocaine nose.” (The photos have since been removed.)
Kropp had the procedure in 2004, and agreed to take before-and-after photos with the understanding that they would be part of the doctor’s medical record. It seems like she was actually pleased with the procedure, because the lawsuit didn’t come until almost ten years later.
In 2013, Dr. Walton opened a new practice, Plastic Surgery Chicago LLC, and he posted the photos of Kropp’s nose with the aforementioned “cocaine nose” label, which is apparently one of his specialties.
Kropp is now suing the plastic surgeon for violating her confidentiality. To get technical, the lawsuit states that Dr. Walton disregarded the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), which requires a patient’s written consent before a doctor is allowed to disclose protected health information that is to be used for commercial purposes or marketing.
The plastic surgery personal injury lawsuit seeks compensation for damages. Because of the publication of photos, Kropp “suffered great harm.” She also contends that Walton should have known that publishing the photos would cause her “to become distressed, shamed and embarrassed,” according to the plastic surgery personal injury lawsuit.
Although it is a lot more common for surgery that has gone wrong, we have seen cases where a surgeon is sued by a patient for allegedly displaying personal images for his own marketing.
Dr. Grigoriy Mashkevich performed rhinoplasty on Catherine Manzione and took before-and-after photos of Manzione. Confusingly, Manzione apparently signed two seemingly inconsistent form consent agreements regarding the photos. One said:
I do not want my photos to be used. I understand that these photos will be placed in my confidential records only.
Another said that the photos were the doctor’s “property” and:
If, in the judgment of the Doctor, medical research, education or science will benefit from their use, such photographs and related information may be published and republished in professional journals or medical books, or used for such publication or use, including as presentation materials.
The photos were posted to Dr. Mashkevich’s website moderncontours.com. This lawsuit followed.
The key question in this lawsuit, will be the same as the Kropp v. Walton lawsuit. Does publishing the pictures on the surgeon’s website violate ones publicity right?
In court says yes in the Manzione v. Mashkevich lawsuit:
The Mashkovich [sic] defendants’ [sic] do not dispute that the website was intended to solicit patients and advertise Dr. Mashkevich’s services. Indeed, the use of the plaintiff’s “before and after” photographs was surely an attempt to show the quality of Dr. Mashkevich’s work to potential patients.
Eric Golfman from Technology & Marketing Law Blog writes:
“It seems like it should be an open question whether a photo on a company’s “brochureware” style website always constitutes advertising. I imagine we could hypothesize counter-examples. Still, the doctor didn’t contest the point, so the complexities underlying that question must await another case.”
The Kropp v. Walton case case hinges on whether she gave written consent for the images to be used, and the language of the contract. Kropp claims she has “suffered great harm.” Moreover, she alleges that Walton surely knew that she would suffer great harm. It is all very similar to the Manzione v. Mashkovich case.
As for Kropp’s photos, they have obviously been taken down from Dr. Walton’s website along with all of the images in the photo gallery.