Baker v. Oakwood Hosp. Corp.

• Decision Date: 04 April 2000
• Docket Number: Docket No. 206407.
• Citation: 608 N.W.2d 823,239 Mich. App. 461
• Parties: Veronica L. BAKER, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. OAKWOOD HOSPITAL CORPORATION and Stephen M. Aronson, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

608 N.W.2d 823

239 Mich. App. 461

Veronica L. BAKER, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. OAKWOOD HOSPITAL CORPORATION and Stephen M. Aronson, Defendants-Appellants.

Docket No. 206407.

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted March 9, 1999, at Detroit.

Decided January 18, 2000, at 9:00 a.m.

Released for Publication April 4, 2000.

David D. Kohl, Novi, for the plaintiff.

Dykema Gossett PLLC (by Rosemary G. Schikora), Detroit, for the defendants.

Before SAWYER, P.J., and FITZGERALD and SAAD, JJ.

SAAD, J.

Defendants Oakwood Hospital Corporation and Stephen M. Aronson appeal by leave granted the September 3, 1997, order by Wayne Circuit Judge Pamela R. Harwood granting plaintiff Veronica L. Baker's motion to compel production of patient medical records and certain of defendant Aronson's personal records in a wrongful discharge lawsuit. This Court granted defendants leave to file this interlocutory appeal. We reverse the order compelling production of the medical records, but affirm the order compelling production of Aronson's personal records.

I. Nature of the Case

This appeal raises several discovery issues, one of which involves an issue of first impression in Michigan regarding the scope of the physician-patient privilege. Plaintiff alleges that the medical research records of Alzheimer's patients contain necessary and material information relating to her wrongful discharge lawsuit. She contends that these records will bear out her claim that defendant Aronson, a doctor, required her to practice medicine without a license by performing research functions restricted to physicians. She argues that defendants are not entitled to assert the physician-patient and psychotherapist-patient privileges in order to shield relevant evidence. Defendants argue that the privileges constitute an absolute bar to disclosure. Without reaching the issue of privilege, the trial court ordered defendants to produce the records in redacted form. Defendants took an interlocutory appeal from that order.

We conclude that under Michigan Supreme Court precedent and subsequent decisions by this Court, the physician-patient privilege is an absolute bar that prohibits the unauthorized disclosure of patient medical records, including when the patients are not parties to the action. We reverse the trial court's order compelling discovery of those records.

II. Facts and Proceedings

This lawsuit arises from an employment dispute between plaintiff, a registered nurse who worked as a research nurse coordinator, and defendant Stephen M. Aronson, M.D. Dr. Aronson conducted a study of Sabeluzole, an experimental drug for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease under the sponsorship of the Janssen Research Foundation (JRF). He began this research at Wayne State University and the Veterans' Administration Hospital, and later brought the study to Oakwood Hospital. Plaintiff worked with Dr. Aronson at Wayne State and the VA hospital, and joined him at Oakwood in January 1996 on a less than full-time basis.

According to plaintiff, plaintiff's and Dr. Aronson's working relationship quickly deteriorated after the move to Oakwood. Plaintiff's part-time status led to a conflict between her and Dr. Aronson over plaintiff's hours, compensation, and benefits package. Plaintiff alleges that Dr. Aronson gave her false information on these matters before she made the move. The parties also disagreed over plaintiff's responsibilities. Plaintiff has alleged the following version of events: After moving to Oakwood, Dr. Aronson was permitted to retain honoraria for lectures and speaking engagements that he had not been permitted to retain at Wayne State. Induced by this financial incentive, Dr. Aronson overbooked himself with speaking engagements that interfered with his participation in the research. Because he was often out of town, he was not available to perform patient medical exams and other research-related duties. Instead, he expected plaintiff to "practice medicine without a license" by assuming certain duties that Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations and research protocols restricted to medical doctors. He also required plaintiff to falsify records to conceal his lack of involvement. The parties also clashed over a pending Parke-Davis study of the drug Milanimine. This study never materialized. Dr. Aronson contests plaintiff's version of events and has denied asking her to do anything improper. Dr. Aronson avers that plaintiff's dissatisfaction stems from defendants' inability to accede to her demands regarding wages, benefits, and work schedule.

In June 1996 plaintiff left Oakwood's employ. Again, the parties dispute the circumstances of plaintiff's departure. Plaintiff alleges that she confronted Dr. Aronson over his illegal and unethical conduct, which caused him to become angry and demand her resignation. When plaintiff refused to sign a resignation letter, he falsely informed Oakwood administration that she had resigned. In contrast, defendants contend that plaintiff voluntarily quit out of dissatisfaction with her compensation and because Dr. Aronson refused her demand to be paid a "finder's fee" for each patient in the study.

Plaintiff filed this three-count lawsuit against Oakwood and Dr. Aronson. Plaintiff included counts for "wrongful discharge" (specifically, a breach of contract claim), "retaliation in violation of public policy," and "interference with contractual or advantageous relations." With respect to the second count, plaintiff alleged that defendants terminated her employment in retaliation for her objections to Dr. Aronson's illegal and unethical conduct.

Discovery Requests And Objections To Discovery

In the course of discovery, plaintiff requested defendants to produce "a copy of the case histories and records of the patients in Dr. Aronson's JRF Sabeluzole study." Although the discovery request asked for patient names to be replaced by numbers to preserve confidentiality, plaintiff also requested a key showing the numbers associated with the names.

Plaintiff also requested the following: documents relating to the JRF Sabeluzole research project and the abortive Parke-Davis research project on the drug Milanimine; documents relating to limitations on Dr. Aronson's retention of lecture honoraria at both Oakwood and Wayne State; Forms 1099 for the tax years 1994-96, showing amounts paid for speaking engagements; travel records for 1994-96; and Forms 1099 for 1994-96 showing amounts JRF paid for the Sabeluzole study.

In their response to this request, defendants objected to the request for medical records because the information was not relevant and was not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. Defendants also averred that the request was "overly broad and burdensome" because it involved thousands of pages of documents that filled two file cabinets. They objected to the requests for Forms 1099, research documents, honoraria records, and travel records on grounds of relevance.

Plaintiff filed her motion to compel discovery of these documents. She argued that the medical records and research project records were relevant because they would support her allegation that Dr. Aronson violated FDA research rules and the research project protocols, and required plaintiff to practice medicine without a license and commit other improper acts. She argued that documents pertaining to Dr. Aronson's travel, speaking engagements, and honoraria were relevant because they related to her allegations that Dr. Aronson's travel took precedence over his participation in the study, prompting him to delegate medical responsibilities to plaintiff and falsify records.

In response, defendants reiterated their objection that the medical records were not relevant to any issue and were too burdensome to produce. Additionally, defendants argued at the motion hearing that the records were privileged, although they had not raised this matter in their brief.

With respect to the remaining discovery requests, defendants argued that the research documents were not relevant because plaintiff was not required to demonstrate that Dr. Aronson actually committed any violations to prove her retaliatory discharge claim (which defendants erroneously labeled a whistleblowers' claim¹). Similarly, they argued that information on Dr. Aronson's travels and speaking engagements was irrelevant because plaintiff would not be required to prove that Dr. Aronson did, in fact, neglect his research responsibilities.

The trial court heard the motion on August 22, 1997, concluded that the materials were sufficiently relevant to plaintiff's causes of action for purposes of discovery, and granted the motion to compel. However, the court also issued a protective order to maintain confidentiality of the records and to replace patients' names with initials. We granted defendants' application for interlocutory appeal.

III. Analysis

A. The Physician-Patient Privilege and Dr. Aronson's Research Records

The applicability of the physician-patient privilege is a legal question that this Court reviews de novo. Once we determine whether the privilege is applicable to the facts of this case, we determine whether the trial court's order was proper or an abuse of discretion. See Dorris v. Detroit Osteopathic Hosp., 220 Mich.App. 248, 250, 559 N.W.2d 76 (1996), aff'd. 460 Mich. 26, 594 N.W.2d 455 (1999), see also Reed Dairy Farm v. Consumers Power Co., 227 Mich.App. 614, 618, 576 N.W.2d 709 (1998), for the standard for reviewing attorney-client privilege, which we consult for analogy.

1. The Statutory Privileges

The physician-patient privilege statute provides, in pertinent part:

Except as otherwise provided by law, a person duly authorized to practice medicine or surgery shall not disclose any information that the person has acquired in attending a patient in a professional character, if the information was necessary to enable the person to prescribe for the

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