In re Grand Jury Investigation in New York County,
No. 111 (N.Y. Oct. 15, 2002)

A district attorney investigating a murder in which the assailant was injured in the attack issued subpoenas to 23 nearby hospitals seeking the records of any Caucasian male who sought treatment for a stab wound on that date. The hospitals sought to quash the subpoena on the grounds of physician-patient privilege. The New York Court of Appeals held that, because the subpoenas define the class of records sought by the cause or potential cause of the injury, the subpoena "inevitably" calls for a medical determination as to the causation which requires professional skill or knowledge and that the inherently medical nature of the determination was exactly the type of intrusion into the physician-patient relationship that the physician-patient privilege was meant to protect. Therefore, the subpoena was quashed.