George v. Christus Health Sw. La. — Nov. 2016 (Summary)

PEER REVIEW STATUTE

George v. Christus Health Sw. La.
16-412 (La. Ct. App. Nov. 4, 2016)

The Third Circuit for the Court of Appeal of Louisiana set aside and remanded back to a lower court a case brought by a neurosurgeon who claimed that his former employer, a hospital, had treated him disproportionately with respect to other doctors under the hospital’s employ.  The neurosurgeon sought evidence to determine whether the hospital had subjected the other doctors’ competencies to the same peer review process that the neurosurgeon was subjected to before the termination of his employment.  The hospital responded to the discovery request with a motion for a protective order, asserting that the documents sought were peer review materials protected from discovery under Louisiana’s peer review confidentiality statutes.

The court looked to cases of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, which had made it clear that the state’s confidentiality statutes did not provide blanket immunity, and also established that no liability attaches to a committee member who acts without malice and in good faith while performing his or her functions within committee.  Thus, when a committee member steps outside the scope of his or her duties, immunity does not continue.  The appeals court reasoned that the lower court incorrectly concluded that the state’s confidentiality statutes provided the hospital with total immunity from discovery of anything that had occurred.  As such, because the lower court had yet to examine the discovery requests in order to determine whether each item of information sought by the neurosurgeon was protected by the state’s confidentiality statutes, the court set aside and remanded the case back to the lower court to determine whether any of the information sought was protected by the privilege established in the confidentiality statutes.