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COPYRIGHT 2001 The Dallas Morning News
Byline: Doug J. Swanson
Feb. 27--At some East Texas hospitals, the management has for five years told employees that talking to the wrong people is a violation of the law. Trouble is, it's a non-existent law.
East Texas Medical Center of Tyler has required thousands of workers to sign a confidentiality agreement that threatened loose talkers with prosecution under the "Information Practices Act of 1977."
As U.S. District Judge Howell Cobb put it in a recent memorandum: "The what?"
Despite its official-sounding title, no such act can be found in Texas or federal statutes, the judge said.
This month, the hospital group acknowledged that its confidentiality requirement cites an apparently imaginary law. As to the source of its policy, East Texas Medical could only hazard...
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