Courtesy of Benzinga.
Accretive Health, Inc. (NYSE: AH) today filed a motion to dismiss the Minnesota Attorney General’s Complaint in federal district court in Minnesota. The motion denies the Attorney General’s claims and requests that the Court dismiss the complaint, in its entirety, with prejudice. As stated in the motion, the Company believes “…the Attorney General’s First Amended Complaint includes allegations that are factually baseless and legally indefensible. What is worse is that rather than litigate this case in the courtroom, the Attorney General orchestrated a nationwide media campaign against Accretive Health.”
The motion includes the following grounds for dismissing the case:
1) The core of this case involves the criminal theft of a password-protected laptop. Under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Minnesota Health Records Act, a company cannot be held liable for the unforeseeable criminal act of a third party stealing a corporate laptop. Further, in the ten months since the laptop was stolen, there is no evidence (and the Attorney General does not even claim) that any patient data has been compromised. As a result, in the absence of any injury, the Attorney General lacks legal standing to pursue claims under HIPAA and the Minnesota Health Records Act as a matter of law.
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