Amazon Accused of Violating Workers’ Privacy With Unauthorized Medical Inquiries
“As the largest employer in the world, Amazon makes clear that it does not believe the law applies to it.”
Amazon is facing allegations in a New Jersey suit that it routinely violates federal and state medical privacy laws by contacting its employees’ healthcare providers without their permission.
The company allegedly has a standard operating procedure requiring its investigators to communicate directly with an employee’s healthcare provider, without that person’s consent, according to the plaintiff in a wrongful-termination suit, Orfi v. Amazon.com Services.
That practice violates the common-law rights of employees as well as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination (LAD), according to court papers filed by Christopher J. Eibeler, the lawyer for plaintiff Jaouad Orfi.
Orfi’s suit claims he was fired from a job at an Amazon warehouse in New Jersey for falsely claiming that he had Covid-19. When Eibeler allegedly learned his client’s dismissal was predicated on Amazon investigators’ adherence to the standard operating procedure, he demanded Amazon cease and desist any further ex parte communications with Orfi’s healthcare provider, but Amazon allegedly refused, according to Eibeler’s brief in opposition to the defendant’s motion to dismiss and in support of the plaintiff’s motion for a partial summary judgment.
According to court documents, Orfi began working at an Amazon warehouse in Burlington, New Jersey, in 2017. On December 16, 2021, he experienced congestion, dizziness, a runny nose, and a headache. He soon learned from his wife that she had tested positive for Covid-19. When he told his supervisor what happened, he was instructed to go home immediately and get tested for Covid.
The next day, Orfi tested positive for Covid at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where his wife is employed. He notified Amazon’s HR department, where he was told to submit a copy of his test result, and he was approved for the FMLA.
Then in March 2022, Kelly Jackson, a fraud investigator for Amazon, contacted Orfi. She allegedly said she had contacted Children’s Hospital and was told that it had no record of Orfi’s test for Covid.
Jackson allegedly accused Orfi of falsifying his Covid test results. Although Children’s Hospital does not typically treat adults, Orfi told Jackson that his wife works at the hospital and it allows employees’ family members to be tested for Covid there. The next day, he was terminated for submitting falsified documents, his suit claims.
Orfi sued Amazon in March 2023, bringing claims for wrongful discharge, tortious interference with prospective economic advantage, and common-law defamation. In April 2023, Amazon moved to dismiss the suit, claiming the plaintiff failed to state viable claims.
Orfi, in an August 5 filing, claimed that he learned from a discovery response that the inquiries to his healthcare provider without his knowledge were part of an Amazon “secret” standard operating procedure. The procedure allegedly directs Amazon fraud investigators to communicate directly with the healthcare providers of employees and to obtain their private medical information without any knowledge or authorization of the employees, which violates their common-law privacy rights, as well as HIPAA, the FMLA, and the New Jersey LAD, the suit claimed.
In light of the alleged privacy violations, Orfi seeks partial summary judgment for FMLA interference, as well as equitable and injunctive relief under the Declaratory Judgment Act and the FMLA.
“Amazon boldly seeks to dismiss plaintiff’s FMLA interference claims and newly asserted claims for equitable relief and declaratory judgment by grossly mischaracterizing the pleadings and the governing law concerning the plethora of ways its [standard operating procedure] egregiously violates the common, federal, and state law. As the largest employer in the world, Amazon makes clear that it does not believe the law applies to it and that [it is] free to treat employees how [it] sees fit. The law does not support this belief,” Orfi claimed in a court filing.
The lawyers representing Amazon—August Heckman and Jason Ranjo of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius—did not respond to requests for comment.
An Amazon spokesman, Sam Stephenson, said of the allegations: “We follow all applicable state and federal laws when conducting internal investigations, and we look forward to proving that through the legal process.”
Eibeler, the lawyer for Orfi, declined to comment on the claims. But he said in court papers that he was able to contact Children’s Hospital and confirm that it provided Covid tests to its employees’ family members, and to obtain confirmation in writing of that policy, with minimal effort.
He wrote: “My efforts confirming that the plaintiff was provided the opportunity to obtain a Covid-19 test on December 21 from CHOP took one Google Search to obtain the telephone number, one telephone call to said number, and less than seven total minutes of time to complete.”
From: New Jersey Law Journal