Injunction
It's official: I have the worst luck on the planet.

At the hearing this morning, the Judge said he had not received the Opposition Papers that I faxed to the Court yesterday: in layman's terms, that would be my side of the story.

I didn't have an attorney with me, and the Judge didn't delay the proceedings until I could find one, so I had no idea what to do. I'm not that quick on my feet verbally, and I had been counting on the Court being able to read what I had to say.

The Kaiser lawyers gave the Judge a copy of my Opposition Papers, and he glanced through the 47 pages, but not long enough to actually read them.

I got to answer a few questions the Judge asked, but those didn't cover most of the points in the Opposition Papers.

The Judge provided an analogy that finding private medical information on a public web site is like finding someone's purse in a public space. I tried to explain that the analogy didn't apply, but now I wish I'd pointed out that if I found a purse, I would attempt to return it to the person who lost it, not some huge corporation that had a vested interest in hiding the purse from the owner.

The Judge issued an Injunction, which I haven't read yet: I assume it will be based on Kaiser's largely unopposed claims.

Then the Judge gave the copy of my Opposition Papers back to the Kaiser lawyers. I asked him to at least read through them before writing the Injunction, because the Judge said he planned to add his own language, but he refused.

The weirdest thing of all was that the Judge said I had wanted the opportunity to tell the Court what happened (quoting my blog), and that I had gotten that opportunity. I'm missing the part where I got that opportunity. From where I'm standing, this was just one more example of how corporations, large bureaucracies, and other bastions of institutional power are rigged against defenseless individuals.

While the Judge did not read my Opposition Papers, the Kaiser lawyers got to make use of them to expand their case to cover anyone who might know me.

Since I still don't have an attorney to represent me, and I know the media will be bandying about the Injunction story, I am going to go ahead and answer questions on this topic. Please send any inquiries to kaiser_scapegoat@hotmail.com

Update: The person who faxed my Opposition Papers has a log that verifies the transmission, including thumbnails of all documents faxed. And I just verified that they were sent to the correct fax number. :-/

Another Update: One document, my letter to the Judge, has been filed as part of the Court papers. Apparently the Court acknowledges receiving one document, so what happened to the Opposition Papers and Exhibits that were part of the same fax?

Also, I hope the exhibit evidence I submitted is not subject to posting on the Court web site. That would invade the privacy of anyone I mentioned. Anyone see the irony for a HIPAA case here?

Update Three: I briefly saw Matthew Schiffgens, the Kaiser Senior Issues Management Consultant who has been "handling" me. No comment.

And Another Update: The Chronicle is saying Kaiser said I posted patient data on eBay. The Kaiser lawyers assured me yesterday morning that Kaiser said no such thing, but they won't make the effort to ask for the correction. For some reason, the Chronicle won't just call the lawyers and ask them point blank whether they claim I posted patient data on eBay. I get why it's in the interest of Kaiser to let the eBay rumors float, but I don't get why the Chronicle is hesitating to verify the facts. Updated to say that the Chronicle did not continue to push the eBay thing in their article this morning - Thanks for thinking about it, Henry.