Alwin Carl Lewis, Petitioner v. the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Respondent; Medical Board of California…

Summary

The court held that the Medical Board did not violate patients' state constitutional privacy rights by accessing their prescription records in the CURES database during its investigation of Dr. Lewis. Even assuming the access constituted a serious invasion of a protected privacy interest, the intrusion was justified by the state's interests in controlling dangerous-drug diversion and protecting patients from incompetent or negligent physicians. The court also held that Lewis could assert the patients' privacy rights, but forfeited challenges to records obtained from CVS and to the federal constitutional claim by failing to raise them earlier.