On July 27, 2023, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals held in Mosley v. Oakwood Lutheran Senior Ministries that verbal disclosure of an employee’s COVID-19 status does not support a violation of Wisconsin healthcare record disclosure laws or a cause of action for invasion of privacy. The court’s decision dismissed the employee’s claims against her employer and addressed the importance of distinguishing what constitutes a breach of privacy during a public health crisis.

Quick Hits

• Verbal disclosure of an employee’s COVID-19 status did not support a violation of Wisconsin’s healthcare record disclosure laws or an invasion of privacy claim, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals ruled.
• The employee’s claim was fatally flawed because the private matter made public at issue in the case would not be “highly offensive to a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities,” the court said.
• The court also found that verbal communication, absent transfer of any record, does not violate the state’s healthcare record disclosure law.

Background

In Oakwood Lutheran Senior Ministries, the employee worked in food services during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. She reported to work in June 2020 and underwent the campus’s COVID-19 screening process. As a part of the procedure, she stated that she had experienced COVID-19 symptoms in response to the employer’s screening questions. As a result, her supervisor denied her entry to the workplace and instructed her to undergo a COVID-19 test. The...

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