Privacy Violation

[mscollins]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Illinois

My husband is being sued out of state, and his tax return was subpoenaed for 2008 (the first year we filed jointly). I am in no way connected to this case, and was concerned about my personal information being given to the plaintiff and the plaintiff's attorney. We requested that my information be blocked and were assured that as it had no bearing on the case it would not be visible to the other side. I have since found that my name, address, ss#, yearly earnings, etc. were in fact made available to the person suing my husband. I feel that since I never gave my approval for my personal information to be used in any such way that my privacy has been violated, and I am considering bringing a complaint against my husband's attorney and possibly suing the firm myself. I am wondering if I have enough for a case against them.

 

[FlyingRon]

Huh? Your husband's lawyer was responding to a subpoena. He is compelled to produce the material requested by the opposing party or provide justification as to why not. If he was exclusively your husband's lawyer, he has no duty to even try to protect your interests in the matter.

Second, what damages do you have? The mere fact that you are pissed off is not actionable.

 

[Ohiogal]

A subpoena is a court order. Unless you successfully FIGHT to restrict the information you can not redact anything. NOT legally at least. If you wanted to fight about your information you should have hired your OWN attorney. YOu didn't do so. Hence, you have no right to complain. And it wasn't YOUR info that was subpoenaed. It was your hubby's which happens to be tied to yours because he filed jointly with you. If you don't want to expose your info to risk when hubby is sued do not own anything with him, keep separate accounts and file taxes separately.