Morshed v. St. Barnabas Hosp. — Feb. 2017 (Summary)

PEER REVIEW PRIVILEGE

Morshed v. St. Barnabas Hosp.
No. 16 Civ. 2862 (LGS) (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 10, 2017)

The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York overruled a hospital’s assertion that certain documents relating to claims of sexual harassment, discrimination, and a hostile work environment were privileged.

A former resident in a training program alleged that he was subject to sexual harassment, a hostile work environment, and discrimination, by physicians who supervised and evaluated him during his training.  The resident sought the production of documents, including e-mails between and among supervising physicians, preceptor evaluations, and e-mails addressing the resident’s performance.  The hospital claimed that the documents were protected from discovery by the peer review privilege.  To this end, the hospital argued that the court should recognize the existence of a peer review privilege under state and federal laws.

The court rejected this argument and ruled that the Health Care Quality Improvement Act did not create a federal peer review privilege.  Similarly, the court ruled that the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act only created a privilege for documents that were assembled for and reported to a patient safety organization; the documents at issue did not fit within the purview of this law.

In considering the state peer review privilege, the court concluded that, on balance, the resident’s need for the information to support his claims for harassment, hostile work environment, and discrimination outweighed the hospital’s desire to keep the documents protected from disclosure.  The court, therefore, overruled the hospital’s assertion of privilege and ordered the production of the documents at issue.