Mendez v. Shah (Summary)

PEER REVIEW – SELF-CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Mendez v. Shah, No. 13-1585 (D. N.J. Oct. 23, 2014)

The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey upheld a magistrate judge’s decision ordering an orthopaedics group to turn over part of a physician’s employment file. The dispute arose after a former patient sued a physician employed by the orthopaedics group, alleging that a medical device implanted during her back surgery had malfunctioned.

The orthopaedics group had withheld certain documents relating to the physician’s peer review activities, arguing that these were considered “self-critical analysis” and were protected from discovery under the law. In determining whether to order disclosure of the peer review documents, the magistrate judge sought to balance the need for disclosure against the public interest in confidentiality. The magistrate judge weighed various legal factors, including the extent to which the information was available from other sources, the degree of harm suffered by both parties, the public interest in preserving the free flow of information, and whether disclosure would result in a chilling effect on future evaluations. Ultimately, the magistrate judge sided with the patient, reasoning that there was no evidence that the physician would be harmed by disclosure of this information.

The district court upheld the magistrate judge’s decision, explaining that he had correctly balanced and applied each of the relevant legal factors in his decision-making; furthermore, it concluded that his decision was neither clearly erroneous nor contrary to the law. The court denied the appeal of the magistrate judge’s decision and issued an order requiring disclosure of the documents.