PEER REVIEW PRIVILEGE

Brown v. Sun Healthcare Group, Inc., No. 3:06-CV-240 (E.D. Tenn. Apr. 14, 2008)

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee resolved a nursing home's objections to discovery requests in a dispute with a patient's estate, ordering the production of copies of all incident reports and disciplinary documents prepared by the nursing home concerning the care of the deceased patient, except: (1) documents privileged under the Tennessee Peer Review Law of 1967, which protects all information and documents given to a peer review committee for peer review purposes; and (2) incident reports privileged under Tennessee's Health Data Reporting Act of 2002, which protects documents actually filed with the Tennessee Department of Health for reporting purposes.

Specifically, the court ordered that any copies of incident reports, disciplinary documents or other documents prepared by the nursing home in the normal course of business relating to the deceased patient that were not in the possession of a peer review committee and had not been filed with the Tennessee Department of Health were not privileged and must be produced.

The court denied as overly broad the patient's estate's discovery request for copies of all disciplinary documents regarding improper resident care by any employee at the nursing home during the three-year period in question.