Doe v. High-Tech Institute, Inc.

The Colorado Court of Appeals reversed the action of a lower court, which dismissed a claim by the plaintiff, a student training to be a medical assistant, that his school's unauthorized testing of his blood for HIV had resulted in an intrusion upon seclusion under state law. The student had earlier confided information concerning his HIV status to an instructor, asking that the information remain confidential. Later, the student, along with his peers, agreed to submit to blood for rubella testing. The instructor asked the laboratory testing the blood to also run an HIV screen only on the HIV-infected student's blood. The court held that such an action was a violation of the student's privacy under both the theories of intrusion upon seclusion for improper appropriation of private information and the public disclosure of private facts. Furthermore, the court held that individuals have a privacy interest in their blood and the medical information that may be obtained from it: "Because personal information concerning a person's health may be obtained through one's blood, urine, and other bodily products, such products cannot be extracted from a person or initially tested without either consent or proper authorization."