An Oregon judge has ventured into uncharted legal territory by ruling that a rape victim can sue a former ambulance paramedic for publishing details of the crime on MySpace after transporting her to the hospital.

Multnomah County Superior Court Judge Pro Tem Erich H. Hoffmann summarily dismissed all claims against American Medical Response, which employed Simon Green at the time he attended to the victim. But he allowed the woman, identified only as Jane Doe, to proceed to trial on a breach of confidentiality claim against Green.

“It would appear to me that a person in plaintiff's position would arguably have an expectation of privacy [in] health information divulged to an EMT/ambulance attendant in the course of treatment,” he said in a recent order.

While Green did not disclose the plaintiff's name or exact address in his MySpace posting, he provided the approximate location of the rape and detailed her description of the assailant. “All told he was in her apartment about an hour, and this very pretty, otherwise normal woman's life is irrepprably [sic] changed,” he said.

Hoffmann noted that Oregon has not yet determined whether an emergency medical technician “has a duty of confidentiality to a patient in the position of plaintiff.” But he cited a California precedent which found an ambulance providing emergency care is a private space analogous to a hospital room.

The plaintiff filed suit in April 2007, alleging that as a result of the MySpace posting she was contacted by reporters and suffered emotional distress and other damages of at least $1 million. Her claims against AMR did not survive summary judgment as Hoffman ruled that the posting occurred outside the course and scope of Green's employment.