PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 21-2102

TAMMIE THOMPSON, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated; DEBRA LOVE, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated,

Plaintiffs - Appellants,

v.

CIOX HEALTH, LLC, d/b/a IOD Incorporated; SCANSTAT TECHNOLOGIES LLC,

Defendants - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Charleston. Bruce H. Hendricks, District Judge. (2:20-cv-02847-BHH)

Argued: September 16, 2022 Decided: October 28, 2022

Before KING, RUSHING, and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Heytens wrote the opinion, in which Judge King and Judge Rushing joined.

ARGUED: James C. Bradley, ROGERS, PATRICK, WESTBROOK & BRICKMAN, LLC, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, for Appellants. Gilad Yair Bendheim, KIRKLAND & ELLIS LLP, New York, New York, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Nina H. Fields, Caleb M. Hodge, ROGERS, PATRICK, WESTBROOK & BRICKMAN, LLC, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, for Appellants. A. Victor Rawl, Jr., Brittany T. Bihun, GORDON & REES LLP, Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellees ScanSTAT Technologies LLC. Jay P. USCA4 Appeal: 21-2102 Doc: 37 Filed: 10/28/2022 Pg: 2 of 7

Lefkowitz, Mason E. Reynolds, KIRKLAND & ELLIS LLP, New York, New York, for Appellee Ciox Health, LLC.

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TOBY HEYTENS, Circuit Judge:

South Carolina law gives patients a right to obtain copies of their medical records,

while capping the fees “[a] physician, or other owner” may bill for providing them. S.C.

Code Ann. § 44-115-80. Asserting they were charged excessive fees, plaintiffs Tammie

Thompson and Debra Love sued third-party medical records companies that fulfilled their

requests, but which do not—and under South Carolina law, cannot—own those records.

Because the statutory obligations at issue apply only to physicians and other owners of

medical records, not medical records companies, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of

the complaint.

I.

Thompson and Love were injured in unspecified accidents and treated by South

Carolina health care providers. Seeking to pursue personal injury lawsuits, Thompson and

Love requested their medical records from the relevant providers. Those records—and

accompanying invoices—were supplied by defendants Ciox Health, LLC and ScanSTAT

Technologies LLC, “information management companies” that retrieve medical records

from health care providers and transmit them to requesting patients or patient

representatives. JA 9.

Claiming the invoiced fees were too high or otherwise illegal, Thompson and Love

filed a putative class action against Ciox and ScanSTAT in federal district court. The

complaint listed four claims, all arising under South Carolina law. The district court

dismissed the complaint on two separate grounds: (1) that the South Carolina Physicians’

Patient Records Act (Patient Records Act or Act) does not apply to medical records

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companies like Ciox and ScanSTAT; and (2) even if it did, the Act creates no private

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