r/interesting • u/tyrion2024 • 10h ago

MISC. A Virginia man inadvertently left his phone recording while he was under anesthesia for a colonoscopy, which captured audio of the doctors: mocking him, instructing a medical assistant to lie to him, and discussing giving him a false diagnosis of hemorrhoids. In 2015, a jury awarded him $500,000.

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u/12345cuda 7h ago

I’m surprised the hospital didn’t pull the old “we don’t consent to video or audio recordings so it doesn’t count”

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u/KeanGilbert 5h ago

Virginia is a one-party consent state, as far as I know

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u/hobbes747 4h ago

I thought that only applies to public property or the property of the one recording?
The hospital is a public place but also privately owned so their attorneys might have argued that.

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u/Stardatara 4h ago

Surely that doesn't apply if the one party is unconscious, right?

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u/Rumpelteazer45 1h ago

It is. The only thing that’s illegal is to secretly record a conversation if you aren’t a part of one. One can argue that even under anesthesia you are a party to whatever conversation is occurring around you.

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u/ManifestoRat 5h ago

They might've but the judge might've ignored them or prosecution framed his client as a whistleblower

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u/throwaway098764567 2h ago

supposedly it was an accident, per elsewhere in the thread, he'd been recording post op instructions from the doc when the anesthesia kicked in. they stuck the phone in his personal items bag under the bed but didn't realize it was still recording.