(ARSTECHNICA) — A lawsuit regarding a dentist and her ticked-off patient was meant to be a test of a controversial copyright contract created by a company called Medical Justice. Just a day after the lawsuit was filed, though, Medical Justice backed down, saying it was “retiring” that contract.
Now, more than a year after the lawsuit was filed, the case against Dr. Stacy Makhnevich seems to have turned into a case about a fugitive dentist. Makhnevich is nowhere to be found, won’t defend the lawsuit, and her lawyers have asked to withdraw from the case.
No-criticism contract promised additional “privacy”
In 2010, Robert Lee was experiencing serious dental pain. He went to see Dr. Stacy Makhnevich, the “Classical Singer Dentist of New York,” in part because she was a preferred provider for his dental insurance company. Before Makhnevich treated him, she asked him to sign a contract titled “Mutual Agreement to Maintain Privacy.”
The contract worked like this: in return for closing “loopholes” in HIPAA privacy law, Lee promised to refrain from publishing any “commentary” of Makhnevich, online or elsewhere. The contract specified that Lee should “not denigrate, defame, disparage, or cast aspersions upon the Dentist.”
And the kicker: if he did write such reviews, the copyright would be assigned to the dentist. She’d own it.
