I remember they tried pulling this crap about 7-8 years ago in Florida and
the State Atty Genl stepped in and stopped it because of some financial and
medical records being involved.  A similar situation also took place in
Southern CA regarding a medical partnership that folded and had records in
storage.

What this signals to me is a lack of understanding that while they *MAY*
have the right to collect what is due them to cover their storage costs,
they also have an obligation to protect the privacy of the content of these
records- and that's how it was attacked in Florida.  Privacy laws in the
State disallowed them from exposing the content, irrespective of their
perceived 'exposure to loss' from not collecting storage fees.

They attempted to argue that they had made public notice that records
belonging to the XYZ Firm had been abandoned and if clients of that firm
wanted to obtain them, they should make contact with the storage provider
and arrange to "bail them out" essentially, but this is also problematic in
that it means they are pawing through privacy protected materials to
determine who they potentially belong to and may be exposing PHI, PFI, or
PII inappropriately.

Peter is right, we as RIM Professionals should all be aware that some
vendors use these tactics and exercise their 'rights' under the
Warehouseman's Lien clause, but when you sign an agreement for services with
them, they charge you as if you're storing gold, not toilet paper.  

Try getting a commodities storage rate with ANY commercial services provider
for records storage- they only time your records become a 'commodity' is
when they want to sell them and fail to protect them.

Larry
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