Nursing Home Gives Financial Records To Wrong Family Member: Lawsuit Thrown Out
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
April 1998
Quick Summary: Whether it was wise to return the deceased’s financial records to the daughter rather than to the widow was one thing. Whether the widow could sue the nursing home on behalf of the estate was another matter altogether, in the judgment of the Court of Appeals of Ohio.
The deceased’s wife had applied to the nursing home to have her husband admitted. Included with the application papers were financial records and tax returns. He passed away before his application could be processed. The application and attached financial records were returned to the daughter, not to the widow of the deceased.
According to the court, the daughter examined her late father’s financial records and from what she learned she decided to file a contest to her father’s will in the probate court.
The will contest apparently threatened her mother’s position as a beneficiary under the will, so her mother, as administrator of the estate, sued the nursing home for having provoked the will contest by releasing the deceased’s financial records to the daughter rather than giving the records back to the widow.
The mother’s lawsuit against the nursing home alleged invasion of privacy. The court threw out the mother’s case.
The court ruled that an invasion of privacy lawsuit is meant to compensate a person for mental anguish when a private facet of the person’s life is exposed to the public. The deceased did not suffer any mental anguish. In addition, the records were released in privacy to another family member, so no invasion of the widow’s privacy occurred.
Rothstein v. Nursing Home, 689 N.E. 2d 108 (Ohio App., 1996).