In re Administrative Subpoena, James Smith v. United States of America
No. 00-4374 (July 13, 2001)

The Department of Justice (DOJ) issued an administrative subpoena for documents pertaining to the professional and personal finances and patient records of a podiatrist who was being investigated for an alleged "kickback" arrangement with two medical testing laboratories. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that any documents sought by administrative subpoena must be produced so long as the documents requested are relevant to the DOJ investigation, the information sought was not already in DOJ's possession, and enforcement would not be an abuse of the court's process. The court incorporated by reference its opinion in a companion case, In re Administrative Subpoena, John Doe (affirming the validity of the subpoena), and focused this opinion on the relevancy of the patient records being sought. Finding those records relevant to showing whether the physician's judgment about the medical necessity of tests was related to the kickback arrangement, the appeals court affirmed the lower court's order enforcing the subpoena.