Picard v. Am. Bd. of Family Med. (Summary)

PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS

Picard v. Am. Bd. of Family Med., No. 13-CV-14552 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 5, 2014)

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan denied a physician’s motion to compel against a certification board holding that review of the certification board’s actions is limited to the physician’s specific claim. Plaintiff, a physician who was a recovering alcoholic, erroneously lost his license to practice medicine by the Michigan Board of Medicine after he self-reported a relapse. The state medical board reversed its decision and restored the physician’s license to a full and unrestricted status. The physician additionally signed a monitoring agreement with the state Health Professionals Recovery Program. The certification board revoked the physician’s board certification status after his license was suspended by the state medical board as one of its prerequisites for certification is that physicians have unrestricted medical licenses. The physician appealed the certification board’s decision on the basis that the suspension by the state medical board had been determined to be in error and that his license had been fully restored. The certification board then informed the physician that his certification would not be reinstated until he completed his monitoring agreement with the Health Professionals Recovery Program, as the monitoring agreement was viewed as a restriction on his license. As a result, the physician was then terminated by his employer due to the fact that he was no longer board certified, which was mandated by his employment contract. The physician sued the certification board arguing that the board had violated his due process rights, and in this portion of the lawsuit, the physician was seeking to compel the board to provide documentation concerning all physicians who had been granted or denied certification by the board due to the fact that they were subject to monitoring agreements. The court denied the motion, holding that the physician’s claim should be limited to the record regarding the certification board’s decision as to the physician alone and that any information regarding other physicians would be irrelevant to the physician’s due process claim.