Update on Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
August, 2004
In our Spring Issue of Insurance Coverage (News), we noted that the Mississippi Supreme Court in The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States v. Mary T. Irving, 2003 WL 22098021 (Miss. Sup. Ct. Sept. 11, 2003), had held that an insurer was required, under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, to withhold from production to third parties private information on their insureds. Recently, the court withdrew its opinion, which, therefore, can no longer be cited as precedental. The court gave no reason for the withdrawal.
We also note that, recently, in Martino v. Burnett, 595 S.E.2d 65 (W. Va., 2004), the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia found an exception to the GLBA's privacy provisions that could require the production of insureds' private information by an insurer. The court acknowledged that disclosure of such information may be permitted under the Act's "judicial process" exemption, but instructed trial courts considering the application of the exemption to balance the interests at stake and to fashion protective orders limiting access only to necessary information.