OT: Jason Pierre-Paul suing ESPN and Adam Schefter per NYPost

Quadruple checked, thanks sport.

No. He cannot sue the hospital. Can we pin a HIPAA post in the useful stuff thread? Every damn time...

I think what cbs650 and Lawyer12 are trying to say is that HIPAA, while facially limited to only cover the conduct of certain entities, can be used in ways that extend liability beyond such entities, even potentially to a news reporter. For instance, under federal criminal laws, one who “commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission” or “willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States” is "punishable as a principal." 18 U.S.C. § 2. Similarly, “if two or more persons conspire . . . to commit any offense against the United States . . . and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy,” then they can be liable as a conspirator. 18 U.S.C. § 371. Additionally, the "knowing" required to be liable for HIPAA violations does not mean "knowingly breaks the law," but rather means "knowingly disclosed or acquired the information." As such, depending on the specific circumstances of how the protected health information was disclosed and acquired, a news reporter could theoretically be criminally liable, pursuant to HIPAA, as a co-conspirator or for otherwise aiding and abetting a covered entity in the disclosure of such information, even though the reporter is not a covered entity. Moving from there, a criminal violation could potentially be used as a hook for civil claims, depending on damages and a host of other factors. For example, liability could come through the "unlawful" prong of certain state-level unfair/unlawful competition statues, or potentially under common-law torts in the vein of negligence (with HIPAA setting standards of care) or privacy (e.g., public dissemination of private facts) or mixed civil conspiracy counts. Or something. I think.