Case Project 1-5: The HITECH Act and E-mail

Assume you are a personal injury lawyer specializing in car accidents. Joan Smith visits your office in a wheelchair asking you to represent her. She says her doctor will e-mail you her hospital discharge records so you can use them in court. When you receive her records, you e-mail them to your paralegal for analysis and filing. Instead of filing the electronic document on the firms file server, your paralegal accidentally forwards the document to the defendants attorney, who happens to be a personal friend. Did anyone violate the HITECH Act? Why or why not? If a complaint was filed, who would file it? What could the potential penalty be? Who would be penalized?