Federal Court in California Blocks Trump Administration’s Unprecedented Attempt to Seize Families’ Private Medical Records from Stanford Children’s Hospital

Judge Pitts grants National Center for LGBTQ Rights and GLAD Law motion for preliminary injunction, finding families likely to prevail on their constitutional privacy claim  

A federal judge today blocked the Trump administration’s US Department of Justice from obtaining the private medical records of minors who received transgender health care at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, ruling that the families challenging the government’s demand are likely to succeed on their claim that it violates their constitutional right to privacy.

In Z.A. v. Blanche (formerly Z.A. v. Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford), US District Judge P. Casey Pitts of the Northern District of California granted a preliminary injunction barring DOJ and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche from requesting, receiving, or otherwise obtaining records that would identify patients as having sought transition-related care or reveal their diagnoses, clinical assessments, treatment, or consent records. The court certified a class of patients who received such care at Packard and found that their privacy interests in this “highly sensitive” information outweigh any legitimate government need for it.

The ruling comes after the Justice Department, having seen administrative subpoenas for the same kind of records quashed by courts across the country, issued a grand jury subpoena to Packard under the seal of a federal court in Texas – despite the hospital, the patients, and the records all being located in California. The court found that the demanded records had no apparent relevance to any criminal matter in Texas.

NCLR’s Shannon Minter and GLAD Law’s Jennifer Levi issued the following statements in response to today’s win for patients and families:  

“The court held that parents and children have a constitutionally protected privacy interest in their medical records that the Trump administration must respect. Families in California can now sleep at night knowing that this blatant attempt to harass and intimidate them and to dictate how they raise their own children has been stopped. Today’s preliminary injunction ruling is a strong indication our case will succeed on the merits,” said Shannon Minter, National Center for LGBTQ Rights Legal Director.

“This decision is a victory for every family in America. The government cannot rummage through children’s medical files to serve a political agenda. And today, families across California are breathing a sigh of relief,” said Jennifer Levi, GLAD Law Senior Director of Transgender and Queer Rights.

The court also granted the families’ request to proceed under pseudonyms, recognizing the risk of harassment they would face if their identities were exposed. The injunction remains in effect while the case proceeds.

The plaintiffs are represented by Lowell & Associates PLLC; the National Center for LGBTQ Rights; GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law); and Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP.