GA reaffirms a constitutional right of privacy in medical records

Georgia reaffirms there is a constitutional right of privacy in medical records. Here it was a civil discovery dispute. Goodell v. Moulton, 2026 Ga. LEXIS 232 (Aug. 11, 2026):

Finally, we also extended the Georgia constitutional right to privacy to protect personal medical records, at least under certain circumstances. We have applied that right repeatedly in the context of state attempts to obtain those records for use in a criminal prosecution, such that the Fourth Amendment and Article I, Section I, Paragraph XIII of the Georgia Constitution (“Paragraph XIII”). See King I, 272 Ga. at 788–94 (statute could not constitutionally be applied to authorize the use of a subpoena to obtain a DUI defendant’s blood-alcohol test results from a hospital, given the right of privacy recognized in Pavesich and a patient’s “reasonable expectation of privacy” in her medical records); Gates v. State, 317 Ga. 889, 891–94, 896 S.E.2d 536 (2023) (applying King I to conclude that an ex parte order was not a permissible means of obtaining an accused’s medical records for use in a criminal prosecution). See also King v. State, 276 Ga. 126, 127–29, 577 S.E.2d 764 (2003) (“King II”) (search warrant was a constitutionally permissible means of obtaining an accused’s medical records from a hospital, as “the Fourth Amendment has itself struck the balance between privacy and public need,” and the Court was “reluctant to construe the state constitutional right to privacy as imposing additional procedures when a search warrant seeks medical records due to our concern that these requirements would be extended to other matters related to search warrants” (quotation marks omitted)). We also have recognized a right to medical privacy in the civil discovery context, albeit without articulating any particular standard for determining when that right might give way to other interests. See Baker v. Wellstar Health System, Inc., 288 Ga. 336, 338, 703 S.E.2d 601 (2010) (citing King I for the proposition that the “Georgia Constitution guarantees [a] right of medical privacy” and concluding that the qualified protective order at issue was too broad because it was not limited to matters as to which the patient-plaintiff had waived his right to privacy). Apart from her implicit criticism of Pavesich that we have already addressed, Moulton does not challenge any of this precedent as wrongly decided, and so we apply it here without question. Under that unchallenged precedent, it is clear that Goodell has a Georgia constitutional right to privacy in the medical information and records at issue.