U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, Judge Mary S. McElroy (2026), U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island — https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.rid.62049/gov.uscourts.rid.62049.38.0.pdf
Key takeaways
- The court quashed a DOJ administrative subpoena (issued under 18 U.S.C. § 3486) for records of minors who received gender-affirming care at Rhode Island Hospital, on three independent grounds: the subpoena lacks a congressionally authorized purpose, it was issued for an improper purpose in bad faith, and it would violate the children’s Fourteenth Amendment right to informational privacy. The court also enjoined DOJ from receiving or using any patient-identifying information produced under it.
Seeded from the abstract and a skim, before the reading in NOTE-024. What follows is what the work says about itself.
The Rhode Island Child Advocate and Rhode Island Hospital (RIH) each moved to quash a DOJ HIPAA administrative subpoena. Issued in July 2025 as part of a nationwide investigation, the subpoena sought years of identifying and clinical records for every minor who had received gender-affirming care at RIH. According to the order, DOJ stopped negotiating with RIH and then, without notice, obtained an enforcement order from the Northern District of Texas. The court finds that the Child Advocate has standing and that the collateral-attack doctrine does not bar relief, because it quashes the subpoena itself rather than the Texas enforcement order. The court also sharply criticizes DOJ’s candor toward both courts and toward the negotiating parties.
Standing in the record
Filed by the reading-time triage of 2026-09-25: 660 seconds of active reading over 4 sessions in the papers-feed tracker. It was filed Deferred, unread. NOTE-024 is the close reading of 2026-09-25, and it placed the work: Active — A primary source worth reading for the informational-privacy holding and the inter-circuit procedural conflict. It is not final: it is on appeal, a First Circuit motions panel (concurrence) has questioned its merits, and it relies in part on QueerDoc, which the Ninth Circuit has since reversed. Read it with ECF 44, the May 18 Texas order and the May 19 First Circuit order.
When seeded, before the reading in NOTE-024, the entry gave a priority for a deeper reading: medium — a substantive privacy ruling with four captures (n=4, t=660 s), though its relevance to ML practice is indirect.
What the seeding asked a deeper reading to check (NOTE-024 is that reading):
- The order bears on government access to medical records and on the constitutional right to informational privacy, which are relevant to data-governance and privacy questions around health data.
- It creates an unusual inter-district conflict with the N.D. Tex. enforcement order. The outcome of any appeal to the First Circuit, and any response from the Texas court, is unverified.
- The order’s characterizations of DOJ’s conduct are the court’s findings. DOJ’s own filings (e.g., ECF No. 9) would give its position.
Access when seeded: I retrieved the full 24-page PDF from the CourtListener RECAP archive. The page header reads “Case 1:26-mc-00007-MSM-AEM Document 38 Filed 05/13/26”. The document is signed and dated May 13, 2026. I read the opening, background, section headings, the merits sections (pp. 14-22) and the conclusion. I did not separately check the docket page or the status of any appeal.