The medical records often contain highly sensitive information (e.g., height, weight, medications, prior medical conditions) along with key details about physical injuries from a dog bite.
For example, a record may include the size of a puncture wound, nature of fractures, extent of nerve damage, or possibility for infections. Many victims also suffer emotional consequences, including anxiety, fear of dogs, nightmares, sleep problems, and trauma, which a counselor may document in counseling records.
The victim may wonder:
“If I bring a claim against the dog owner, who will see my medical and psychological treatment records?”
The answer is not always simple.
Medical Records Related to the Dog Attack Are Usually Discoverable
When a person claims physical injury and mental distress following a dog bite, they place their health “at issue,” meaning, the injured party claims the attack created a new condition or made a prior condition worse.
For example, if a dog bite victim seeks compensation for:
- Emergency room treatment;
- Surgery;
- Wound care;
- Scarring;
- Infection;
- Physical therapy;
- Pain and suffering;
- Future medical treatment, and/or
- Making a prior medical or psychological condition worse.
With this claim, the defendant and the insurance company will generally have the right to obtain records concerning those claimed injuries.
The Legal Basis To Discovery Treatment Records
Under Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure 4003.1, a party is generally allowed to obtain discovery on any non-privileged matter that is relevant to the case. Because the plaintiff explicitly testified that these specific hospitals treated her physical injuries, those physical medical records became legally relevant and discoverable.
Thus, a person cannot seek compensation for an injury while preventing the opposing party from reviewing evidence necessary to evaluate that injury.
However, filing a personal injury claim does not mean that every medical record a person has ever created becomes automatically available.
Psychological Records Receive Special Protection
Mental health records are treated differently from ordinary medical records.
Pennsylvania recognizes a strong public policy protecting confidential communications between a patient and a mental health provider. The purpose of that protection is to encourage people to seek treatment and to speak openly with mental health professionals without fear that their private thoughts and discussions will later become public.
Pennsylvania’s psychologist-patient privilege provides:
“No psychiatrist or person who has been licensed … to practice psychology shall be, without the written consent of his client, examined in any civil or criminal matter as to any information acquired in the course of his professional services.”
See 42 Pa.C.S. § 5944.
The privilege protects confidential communications made during treatment, not necessarily every document that happens to relate to mental health.
Balancing Test to Discovery Medical Records
Pennsylvania law recognizes that injured people have a right to seek compensation for their injuries. However, it also recognizes that medical and mental health records contain highly private information. Courts often balance between competing interests. While the plaintiff has a right to keep certain records private, the defendant has the right to test Plaintiff’s claims. For example, let’s say a plaintiff alleges “severe emotional distress” from a dog attack. Expect the Defendant to test whether the “distress” pre-dates the incident or relates to some other issue. Perhaps the attack victim feels stress from a divorce unrelated to the attack.
The court must then balance the defendant’s right to challenge alleged “stress” versus a patient’s right to confidentiality.
Or let’s say the plaintiff alleges permanent hand pain from a bite that’s allegedly “new” and “different” from prior hand pain, unrelated to the attack. Fairness dictates that the Defendant discover all treatment records for “hand pain” before and after the accident.
The Pennsylvania Superior Court’s Decision in Gormley v. Edgar
The Pennsylvania Superior Court addressed this issue in a personal injury case involving medical and mental health records.
In Gormley v. Edgar, 995 A.2d 1197 (Pa. Super. 2010), the plaintiff filed a personal injury claim after a motor vehicle accident. During discovery, the defendant sought certain mental health-related records. The plaintiff argued that the records were privileged.
The Superior Court recognized the importance of protecting mental health confidentiality, explaining that such confidentiality encourages effective treatment. However, the Court also recognized that privileges are not unlimited.
The Court held that when a plaintiff places their mental condition at issue in a civil case, the privilege may be waived as to relevant mental health information.
The important distinction is this:
- A person does not waive mental health privilege simply by claiming ordinary pain and suffering, embarrassment, or emotional distress that naturally accompanies a physical injury.
- A person may waive the privilege when they specifically place a mental health condition at issue, such as claiming psychological injury, anxiety disorder, PTSD, or other mental health conditions requiring treatment.
A Recent Pennsylvania Trial Court Decision Further Addresses the Issue
A recent Lackawanna County decision illustrates that a plaintiff does not automatically waive the confidentiality of mental health records simply by filing a personal injury lawsuit.
Morreck v. Karns, No. 2025-CV-1140 (C.P. Lacka. Co. June 12, 2026)
In Morreck v. Karns, the plaintiff was injured in a motor vehicle accident and claimed physical injuries caused by the defendants’ negligence. During discovery, the plaintiff identified hospitals where she had received treatment for physical injuries related to the accident and prior physical conditions. The defendants subpoenaed those medical records, but the plaintiff objected out of concern that the subpoenas could result in the disclosure of protected mental health treatment information under Pennsylvania’s Mental Health Procedures Act (“MHPA”).
The court recognized that mental health records receive heightened protection under Pennsylvania law. A plaintiff does not waive the MHPA privilege merely because she files a personal injury lawsuit. Instead, waiver occurs only when the plaintiff has placed her mental health condition directly at issue and, judged under an objective standard, knew or reasonably should have known that her mental health would become a subject of litigation.
Because the plaintiff in Morreck claimed only physical injuries and did not allege a separate psychological injury, emotional distress claim, or psychiatric condition caused by the accident, the court held that she had not placed her mental health at issue. The defendants were entitled to obtain relevant physical medical records from the hospitals that treated her injuries, but the court specifically prohibited the disclosure of psychiatric or mental health records. Importantly, the court ordered that production of physical medical records would not constitute a present or future waiver of the plaintiff’s MHPA protections.
Conclusion
Claiming injuries means the opposing party will gain access to sensitive treatment records. This is true, even in regard to highly sensitive and otherwise privileged psychological treatment records, including treatment for PTSD, anxiety, depression, emotional trauma, or other mental health consequences.
That said, a person injured by a dog bite does not necessarily surrender the privacy of their mental health records simply by seeking compensation for physical injuries.
If, for example, the plaintiff keeps the scope of their suit narrow—focusing solely on physical harms and omitting any claims of independent psychological trauma—the court may find that she had not placed her mental health “at issue,” making the mental health records beyond the scope of discovery.
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