Judge Daniel Crowley

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge

On May 23, 2019, after stopping for a red light at Webb Way on PCH, a driver slammed his car into the rear end of the vehicle I was in.  To this day there is neck instability and pain due to that collision.

January 16, 2020 I filed a lawsuit against the driver. Veatch Carlson, LLP, was the law firm hired by Farmers Insurance to represent the driver. April 16^th of 2020, Veatch Carlson issued subpoenas, including one to the custodian of records for the Ventura County Health Care Agency for all my medical records.  I received notice of the subpoenas on 4/24 and on 4/30 filed a motion to quash. Veatch Carlson, U. S. Legal, and the Ventura County Health Care Agency were all given notice of the motion. 

On June 15^th Leslie Burnet of Veatch Carlson issued another subpoena for my medical records. This time it was directed to the custodian of records of my primary care provider in the Ventura County Health Care agency, and used the PCP’s address. These were the same records sought under the 4/16 subpoena and subject to the filed motion to quash. This time I did not get notice of the subpoena until 9/8, after my records were already delivered to the deposition office and released to Veatch Carlson.

The deposition office, U.S. Legal Support in Woodland Hills, CA, had sent Veatch Carlson a notice in May that the 4/16 subpoena order was cancelled. They told Veatch Carlson, “We will close the order, once you have reached a ruling or agreement, please re-submit the order.”  Although U.S. Legal Support would not have known the 6/15 subpoena was for the same records, unless Veatch told them, it was U.S. legal Support, working for Veatch Carlson, that should have sent the notice. No ruling or agreement had been reached.

I filed a motion to quash the June 15th subpoena. 
Judge Crowley indicated that it was too late since the records had already been released, and ruled, "...plaintiff has not met his burden. Plaintiff has not attached the allegedly defective subpoena, or any evidence supporting Plaintiff's motion."  The defect was that I had not received notice. I had not proved I did not receive notice.
I asked the judge to have the records deleted.

 
Despite: the guarantee in the first paragraph in the California Constitution for privacy; Section 56.10 of the California Civil Code protecting medical records; California Code of Civil Procedure Section 1985.3 requiring notice to the consumer of subpoenas and release from production obligation by witnesses once notice of a motion to quash had been received; and California Code of Civil Procedure Section 2023.030 providing for monetary, issue, terminating and contempt sanctions for abuse of discovery process, Crowley would not order the medical records deleted. 

Despite the fact no proof of service had been offered for the June 15th subpoena, Crowley would not order the deletion of the record. 

Enforcing the privacy laws might have extended the time of the case and would have implicated the Ventura County Health Care Agency for their violation of privacy laws. 
I