July 17, 2006

The Associated Press reports that the Georgia Court of Appeals, in a 6-1 decision, threw out the portion of the Georgia tort reform package requiring that med-mal plaintiffs waive medical records privacy rights to file a claim. The court reasoned that the provision was trumped by the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA). Readers may remember that the Georgia Supreme Court earlier reversed other portions of the tort reform package, as Jonathan Wilson described in detail here.