The plaintiff in a suit against a romantic rival and a medical testing company is asking for a protective order to prevent embarrassing details of her case from being reported by news outlets including the Madison County Record.
Plaintiff Jane Doe is suing Maureen Sackmann and Quest Diagnostics Inc. for allegedly revealing the results of a herpes test to Doe's ex-boyfriend.
Doe additionally claims that Sackmann told Doe's ex-boyfriend that Doe had the disease and that Sackmann invented a fake lab report showing she was positive for the disease as well.
Madison County Circuit Judge Daniel Stack is set to hear the motion at 9 a.m. Aug. 27.
Doe's claim was filed earlier this year.
In the suit, Doe claims that Sackmann was employed by Quest at the time of the incident.
Doe claims Sackman had previously been in a relationship with Doe's ex-boyfriend and that she may have been having relations with him at the time she divulged the plaintiff's test results.
The plaintiff claims the revelation of her test results caused her great harm and emotional distress.
The plaintiff's claim seeks more than $350,000 in damages, attorney's fees and other relief.
The plaintiff filed the move for the protective order July 27.
In the motion, Doe claims that Quest Diagnostics has asked plaintiff to disclose her identity in discovery and that of other witnesses.
The plaintiff expresses concern in the July 27 filing about the interest of news media in the case.
"The media has shown great interest in this case," the motion reads. "Plaintiff is concerned that disclosure of certain witnesses and information, if made part of the court record by any of the parties would cause great harm and embarrassment to the Plaintiff and harm and embarrassment to innocent witnesses and members of her family, including her children."
The motion cites coverage of Doe's case by the Record, the Alton Telegraph, FOX Channel 2 news and KMOV Channel 4 news of St. Louis as examples of the interest in her case.
"In this case, if defendant Quest is allowed to inject into the
court record embarrassing facts about the Plaintiff and make public the identity of innocent witnesses, the entire purpose of the Plaintiff's suit will be thwarted," the motion goes on to conclude.
Doe is represented by Emily Johnson.
Sackmann is represented by John Webster.
Quest Diagnostics is represented by Matthew Day.
The case had previously been assigned to Madison County Circuit Judge Barbara Crowder.
The case is Madison case number 10-L-101.