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

PEER REVIEW PRIVILEGE

George v. Christus Health Sw. La.
No. 16-412 (La. Ct. App. Oct. 12, 2016)

The Court of Appeal of Louisiana granted in part a neurosurgeon’s request for relief and set aside a protective order issued by the trial court shielding from discovery peer review information of other physicians at a hospital.

The neurosurgeon was suspended, and ultimately not reinstated from a leave of absence, following accusations that he was inebriated while in the operating room.  The neurosurgeon sued the hospital and others, asserting claims for breach of contract and unfair trade practices.  The neurosurgeon alleged that the hospital displayed malice and personal bias toward him.  To support this allegation, he sought “evidence from the hospital to support [his] position that other doctors subject to [the hospital’s] peer review process were found to lack competence and to be a threat to quality healthcare, but that those doctors were still granted hospital privileges despite those findings.”  The hospital filed for, and was granted, a protective order.  In granting the protective order, the trial court concluded that the Louisiana peer review statute protected the information sought by the neurosurgeon.  The neurosurgeon appealed the trial court’s decision, arguing that the peer review statute was unconstitutional and that the decision should be set aside.  The court of appeal found that the state peer review statute “[does] not provide a hospital with total immunity from discovery of anything that occurs within the internal committee operation of a medical facility.”  Since the trial court reached the opposite conclusion, the court of appeal granted the neurosurgeon’s request for relief in part and remanded to the trial court “to re-examine each of the individual discovery requests…to determine whether any of the information sought is protected by the privilege created by the [peer review statute].”  The court did not rule on the neurosurgeon’s claim that the peer review statute was unconstitutional but noted that if the trial court found that any of the sought after information was protected under the statute, the neurosurgeon could seek further relief.