Opinion ID: 769680
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Highly offensive

Text: 27 Fletcher introduced evidence that Sawyer obtained information about her staph infection by subterfuge. Fletcher equates subterfuge with highly offensive conduct. In interpreting 652B of the Restatement, the Kansas Supreme Court has held that unauthorized release of medical information does not constitute highly offensive conduct when that information could otherwise have been obtained by proper means. See Werner v. Kliewer, 710 P.2d 1250, 1255-56 (Kan. 1985). 28 In Werner, a husband urged his wife's physician to send a letter to the trial court disclosing the wife's suicidal attempts and behavior in the midst of divorce and child custody proceedings. The wife sued her physician for intrusion upon seclusion because the physician wrote the letter without her consent. The Kansas Supreme Court upheld a grant of summary judgment in favor of the physician on the intrusion claim, holding that there is nothing in the letter which was not already known by her husband. . . . although it would have been preferable to have followed standard court and discovery procedures, the information revealed, under the circumstances of this case, certainly does not rise to the level of being highly offensive to a reasonable person. Id. 29 Like the husband and physician in Werner, Sawyer could have employed proper means to discover whether Fletcher actually had a staph infection at the time of her discharge. During her rebuttal argument, Fletcher's counsel conceded that PCF could have obtained a subpoena for the doctor's testimony during Fletcher's unemployment benefits application process. That concession comports with our understanding of Arkansas unemployment benefits law: PCF would have had an opportunity (perhaps even a duty) to subpoena Fletcher's doctor. See, e.g., Sanyo Manufac. Corp. v. Stiles, 702 S.W.2d 421, 423 (Ark. Ct. App. 1986) (recognizing an employer's right to request subpoenas of employees' doctors to determine whether employees were medically restricted from working); see also Ark. Employ. Sec. Reg. 15(A) (last visited June 28, 2000) 4 (Two [2] copies of the notice of an initial or additional claim filed [by claimant] shall be mailed . . . to . . . his last employer. This notice shall request that the employer immediately furnish pertinent information to the Employment Security Division.) (emphasis added). 30 Because Sawyer might have availed herself of proper discovery means -- even though she did not -- we conclude as a matter of law that Sawyer's conduct was not highly offensive. See Werner, 710 P.2d at 1255-56. Fletcher urges a contrary conclusion and refers us to an illustration in 652B. Illustration 4 prescribes liability for one who procures evidence to use in a civil suit by forging a court document to obtain confidential bank records of his adversary. See Restatement (Second) of Torts 652B, cmt. b, illus. 4 (1977). Illustration 4 does not foreclose our decision, however, because the felonious conduct of the actor in the hypothetical is qualitatively different from Sawyer's conduct. While we readily acknowledge that Sawyer's conduct was morally reproachable, her conduct does not rise to the level of forgery, a felony. Hence Sawyer's decision to bypass proper channels in obtaining information from Fletcher's doctor does not bring her conduct within the ambit of Illustration 4. 31 Fletcher therefore failed to adduce sufficient evidence at trial to permit a jury to conclude that Sawyer intruded in a highly offensive manner.