2 people sue West Penn Hospital after former employee is charged with secretly recording them
Share this post:
Two people who say they were video recorded by a West Penn Hospital employee filed a lawsuit against the hospital system Wednesday, alleging negligence and invasion of privacy.
The complaint, filed in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court, seeks class-action status to represent everyone who was allegedly victimized by Guy Caley, a former employee at the hospital.
Caley, 52, of Canonsburg was charged over the summer with nearly 90 counts of invasion of privacy and intercepting communications.
He is accused of recording dozens of employees and female patients, all of whom were in various stages of dress, sometimes using the toilet and others while in the imaging room.
“Mr. Caley can be heard in some of the videos instructing the female patients to undress and change into a hospital gown,” the complaint said.
According to the criminal complaints, Caley admitted to using a hidden camera in a unisex employee bathroom, as well as another restroom on the third floor, and then downloading the video footage to his personal computer. The recordings, the lawsuit said, were captured in and around the hospital’s MRI room.
The first plaintiff in the lawsuit, whose name is redacted, was a patient at West Penn on Nov. 8 and 9, 2018. She received a letter on July 15 from the district attorney’s office informing her she may have been a victim of a crime during her visit.
When she was interviewed by a detective, she learned that five cameras were discovered in the procedure room and two cameras in the bathroom near there, the lawsuit said.
The second plaintiff, whose name is also redacted, was treated at West Penn in October 2019.
She, too, was notified in July that she had been identified as an alleged victim in the case.
Claims in the lawsuit include invasion of privacy, citing West Penn as vicariously liable for Caley’s alleged conduct; intentional infliction of emotional distress; and negligence for failing to properly check Caley’s background and supervise him, and failure to train those around him to recognize his conduct.
Caley is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in connection with the criminal charges on Oct. 2.
Dan Laurent, a spokesman for Allegheny Health Network, said he cannot comment on pending litigation.
However, he repeated a statement issued when charges were filed, calling the alleged conduct by Caley “appalling.”
“We are dismayed that such a reprehensible act was committed on our campus,” the statement said. “At Allegheny Health Network and West Penn, we place the utmost priority on safeguarding the privacy and dignity of our employees, patients, and visitors, and we deeply regret that some have been unknowingly affected by this criminal act.”