Legal Question in Employment Law in New York

For a lawyer familiar with labor / employment law / HIPAA & privacy violations.

I work for a company in NYC that helps indigents obtain public assistance. My boss sent me out to a random health clinic one day (clinic is unaffiliated with my company) to essentially recruit people there who might be able to benefit from my company's services. The clinic is in a shady Harlem area. While there, I saw a man loitering outside the clinic who I recognized as my friend's deadbeat father who neither of us had seen in years and who is somewhat frightening. I snapped a picture of him with my phone and texted it to my friend.

He did not see me do this, but my friend showed the pic to her mom. Her mom contacted him and said "Someone saw you at the HIV clinic, I have a picture."

He was furious. He contacted the clinic and my employer is now aware that I took the picture and sent it. I was just fired. It was deemed a HIPAA VIOLATION.

Important facts:

1. He was not inside the clinic, just outside the building. (Apparently he IS a patient there, has been there a lot, but that day, he wasn't even there as a patient, he was just outside.)

2. I did not tell my friend WHERE I saw him. I didn't tell her I was at work, I just told her I was in Harlem. In my job at my company's regular location, which is not a clinic, I don't deal with medical records or private health information at all. I still wasn't even sure it definitely was her estranged father. My friend's mother connected dots that I did not connect.

I was fired today.

Please evaluate my situation and advise me in any and all ways possible.

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