Update: “Court dismisses Duluth doctor’s lawsuit against patient’s son”

by Walter Olson on May 4, 2011

“A judge [last week] threw out a lawsuit filed by a Duluth physician who said he was defamed by a man who publicly criticized his bedside manner.” [Grand Forks Herald, earlier] More: Heller, OnPoint News.

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{ 6 comments }

1 asdfasdf 05.04.11 at 9:32 pm

Why doesn’t the newspaper just post a link to the decision, rather than opining for several paragraphs as to what it thinks the decision said?

2 nevins 05.04.11 at 10:41 pm

There is one problem of asymmetry. The physician is substantially restricted in public rebuttal by privacy laws. There needs to be some reasonable mechanism within patient privacy that when the patient chooses to go public with identifying information on the physician, then the physician would be free to publicly rebut using patient identifying information.

3 Bumper 05.05.11 at 11:06 am

I don’t believe it was the patient, but rather the patient’s son that went viral. So that begs the question: Did the son have the legal authority to disclose his dad’s private medical information? Yes, if he as power of attorney. No, where’s the wrist slapping now.

4 Reddit Reader 05.08.11 at 2:06 am

“Dennis Laurion is a liar and a bully and a coward,” McKee said. “He knowingly made false and malicious statements about me to a total of 19 different professional and medical organizations, regulatory agencies and websites. ”

Sounds like a public rebuttal to me.

5 Noah Vale 05.17.11 at 3:02 am

Your link to the Grand Forks Herald broke, but the Duluth News Tribune still has a link at http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/197679/publisher_ID/36 , and the Wahpeton Daily News has a shorter article at http://www.wahpetondailynews.com/articles/2011/04/29/breaking_news/doc4dbacce519402570009682.txt .

6 Reddit Reader 05.19.11 at 12:58 am

The judge’s order is now posted at http://www.onpointnews.com/docs/Mckee-v-Laurion.pdf .

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