Insurance Company Goes Online For Evidence Against Its Insured
Many teens love to keep journals and diaries. With new technology, these journals, which are often very revealing, are now shared publicly online. Many problems can arise when teens expose too much of their personal lives to strangers. Children are often warned by parents and teachers that Internet predators are a real danger online. It is true; not everyone on the web is a friend.
Now there is a lawsuit that has evolved out of the revealing online diaries of teens on MySpace and Facebook. Law.com reports that an insurance company is being sued after refusing benefits to teens because of the contents of their postings on online social networks.
Horizon Blue Shield of New Jersey denied benefits to two teens based on their online writings. The insurer refused the medical benefits because after reviewing the MySpace and Facebook pages of the teens they feel that the eating disorders that the children allegedly suffer are not biologically based and is likely caused by emotional distress, which is not covered under their policies. Under New Jersey law, the insurer is only obligated to pay for treatment of mental illness if it has a biological cause.
The parents of the teens have sued Horizon Blue Shield on behalf of their children in federal court in New Jersey. The court will not allow depositions of the children, so the insurer plans to introduce the passages that the teens posted online as evidence of their emotional problems, that they say are the root of their eating disorders.
The plaintiffs in the case have been dealt a blow by the judge in the case, as well, and have been ordered to submit copies of e-mails that the children have written about their eating disorders, symptoms or related health conditions as well as any test that had been posted online related to these health issues. In the absence of depositions, this could be of monumental importance to the defense lawyers for the insurance company. The plaintiffs will be required to certify that they have complied with the order and produced all of the teens' online writings about their medical conditions.
The mother of one of the teens has not come right out and said that she will not comply with the order, but has instead stated that she does not have any of her daughter's e-mails or online writings. Lawyers for Horizon have all but called the woman a liar and asked the judge to impose sanctions. They argue that the medical provider for the teen has already supplied them with copies of e-mail correspondence that they have received from the teen.
Lawyers for Horizon asked that the judge require the plaintiffs to reveal all of their e-mail accounts as well as those of their families. To prove that they are playing hardball in the case, they also requested that the plaintiffs be required, at their own expense, to provide the insurer with a mirror image copy of the hard drives of all of the computers used by the families. The judge denied their request.
The parents of both teens deny that they have copies of the writings that their children had posted on their MySpace and Facebook pages. The lawyer for one of the plaintiffs also argues that disclosing any personal writings of his client would be harmful to her fragile state of health.
Defense lawyers for Horizon have asked that the case be dismissed because there is legislation currently pending in New Jersey that would put the issue to rest. The measure, S-607/A-2077, seeks to amend the Mental Health Parity Law in New Jersey so that eating disorders will be required to be covered just as any other illness. The measure has already been approved by the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee and is currently being considered by the Budget and Appropriations Committee. During the last legislative session an identical measure passed the Senate and was approved by the Assembly Appropriations Committee, but then died.
So this case rolls on, if for no other reason but to remind those who use the Internet that not everyone online is a friend, including your insurance company.
