Elhadj Alpha Mahmoud Souare v. Akron Children's Hospital, et al.

I. Whether a private hospital that explicitly invokes a state statute to deny a father access to his child's medical records acts under color of state law for purposes of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, where the denial was made solely pursuant to Ohio Revised Code § 3109.042 — directly conflicting with Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922 (1982). II. Whether the district court’s holding creates an unconstitutional catch-22 denying any judicial forum for fundamental parental rights, violating Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371 (1971). III. Whether Ohio's categorical exclusion of unmarried fathers from their children's medical records — without notice, hearing, or individualized determination — violates the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses under Stanley v. Illinois, Troxel v. Granville, and Caban v. Mohammed. IV. Whether HIPAA, 45 C.F.R. § 164.502(g), which grants both parents the right to access a minor child's medical records absent a court order, preempts Ohio Revised Code § 3109.042 as applied by private hospitals to deny unmarried fathers access to their children's medical records. V. Whether government-created poverty — resulting from a government-admitted wrongful license suspension that eliminated Petitioner's income — can bar access to federal appellate courts when the fees owed arise from cases challenging that same government error, in violation of Boddie v. Connecticut and Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12 (1956).