Canfield v. Sandock
| Decision Date | 27 November 1990 |
| Docket Number | No. 71S03-9011-CV-745,71S03-9011-CV-745 |
| Parties | David J. CANFIELD, Jr., Appellant, v. Melvin H. SANDOCK and Betty J. Sandock, Appellee. |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
Robert J. Palmer, Arthur A. May, May, Oberfell & Lorber, South Bend, for appellant.
Robert F. Gonderman, Sr., Gonderman Law Offices, P.C., South Bend, for appellee.
This cause had its origin in an automobile-pedestrian accident which resulted in personal injury to the pedestrian, Melvin Sandock. Sandock filed a suit for damages against David J. Canfield, the driver of the car, alleging "temporary and permanent physical injury, temporary and permanent pain and suffering, mental suffering, medical expenses and economic loss." The complaint also alleged that Sandock's wife suffered a loss of consortium.
By way of interrogatories, Canfield requested the following medical information: 1) the names, addresses, and appointment dates of "each doctor who [had] examined, treated, or diagnosed any of the injuries [Sandock] allegedly suffered or sustained as a result of the accident of October 23, 1986," and 2) whether Sandock had been examined, treated or diagnosed by any doctor for any cause from the date of the accident to the date of the interrogatory and the names, addresses, and appointment dates of those treating physicians. In answer to the first request, Sandock identified five doctors whom he had consulted regarding his accident-related injuries, and he gave the name of his cardiologist in response to the second. Pursuant to Ind.Trial Rule 34(C), Canfield then served on all six doctors a request for production of documents and a subpoena duces tecum which requested
[a] copy of each and every document contained within your file pertaining to plaintiff Melvin H. Sandock.... This request includes, but is not limited to, copies of any and all physician's notes, nurse's notes, clinical reports, hospital reports, laboratory reports, questionnaires completed by the patient, and any other document contained within your file.
Trial Rule 34(C) requires that production requests made on nonparties be served on parties, and Canfield complied with this part of the rule by forwarding a copy of each request to Sandock's attorney.
Sandock then filed a motion to quash the subpoenas and for a protective order to prevent the production of all documents requested from all six doctors, asserting that some of the requested material fell within the physician-patient privilege and was therefore not subject to discovery. The trial court granted the protective order, quashed the subpoenas, and awarded attorneys' fees to Sandock's counsel as a sanction. Subsequently, the trial court granted Canfield's Request for Certification and Sandock's request for appellate attorneys' fees, reserving the ruling on the amount. Canfield's appeal was addressed in Canfield v. Sandock (1988), Ind.App., 521 N.E.2d 704, 1 where the Court of Appeals ruled that the trial court abused its discretion in precluding Canfield's discovery of Sandock's medical records and in awarding attorneys' fees. Sandock then filed a petition for transfer to this Court. The petition is granted, and the decision of the Court of Appeals is vacated.
The instant case sets before this Court the important task of delineating the respective boundaries of the physician-patient privilege and the scope of discovery where the two are in conflict. Our discovery rules are designed to allow a liberal discovery procedure, the purposes of which are to provide parties with information essential to the litigation of all relevant issues, to eliminate surprise and to promote settlement, with a minimum of court involvement in the process. Chustak v. Northern Ind. Pub. Serv. Co. (1972), 259 Ind. 390, 288 N.E.2d 149; Crider v. State Exch. Bank (1986), Ind.App., 487 N.E.2d 1345. Ind. Trial Rule 26(B)(1) provides:
Parties may obtain discovery regarding any matter, not privileged, which is relevant to the subject-matter involved in the pending action.... It is not ground for objection that the information sought will be inadmissible at the trial if the information sought appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.
Trial Rule 34(C) states that "[a] witness or person other than a party may be requested to produce ... the matters [discoverable from another party]." These two rules, read in conjunction, provided the avenue by which Canfield attempted to discover from the nonparty doctors medical information relevant for the preparation of his defense at trial.
Sandock sought to resist the discovery of this information by invoking the physician-patient privilege. This privilege did not exist at common law, but was statutorily created "for the purpose of extending to the relation between a patient and his physician the same rule of public policy by means of which the common law protected the professional confidence necessarily existing between a client and his attorney." Masonic Mut. Benefit Ass'n v. Beck (1881), 77 Ind. 203, 210. The keeping of professional confidences existing between an attorney and client is enforced by two mechanisms, I.C. 34-1-14-5, which renders attorneys incompetent to testify, and Ind. Professional Conduct Rule 1.6, which forbids attorneys to "reveal information relating to representation of a client unless the client consents after consultation." The rationale underlying the attorney-client privilege, which was recognized at common law, and scope of the enforcement mechanisms have been explained by this Court as follows:
A fundamental principle in the client-lawyer relationship is that the lawyer maintain confidentiality of information relating to the representation. The client is hereby encouraged to communicate fully and frankly with the lawyer even as to embarrassing or legally damaging subject matter.
The principle of confidentiality is given effect in two related bodies of law, attorney-client privilege (which includes the work product doctrine) in the law of evidence and the rule of confidentiality established in professional ethics. The attorney-client privilege applies in judicial and other proceedings in which a lawyer may be called as a witness or otherwise required to produce evidence concerning a client. The rule of client-lawyer confidentiality applies in situations other than those where evidence is sought from the lawyer through compulsion of law.
Prof.Cond.R. 1.6 comment (emphasis added). The attorney-client privilege protects against judicially compelled disclosure of confidential information regardless of whether the information is to be disclosed by way of testimony or by court-ordered compliance with a discovery request which a party has attempted to resist. The harm to be prevented is not the manner in which the confidence is revealed, but the revelation itself.
By creating the physician-patient privilege, which is codified in the same statute as the attorney-client privilege, I.C. 34-1-14-5, the legislature statutorily recognized the societal value of protecting the confidences existing within that professional relationship, and this Court interpreted this legislative act as affording as much protection to physician-patient confidences as is provided to attorney-client confidences because of the marked similarity of interests being protected. Beck, 77 Ind. 203. We explained in Collins v. Bair (1971), 256 Ind. 230, 268 N.E.2d 95, that the physician-patient privilege
has been justified on the basis that its recognition encourages free communications and frank disclosure between patient and physician which, in turn, provide assistance in proper diagnosis and appropriate treatment. To deny the privilege, it was thought, would destroy the confidential nature of the physician-patient relationship and possibly cause one suffering from a particular ailment to withhold pertinent information of an embarrassing or otherwise confidential nature for fear of being publicly exposed.
Id. at 236, 268 N.E.2d at 98. As is the case with the attorney-client privilege, the keeping of confidences existing within the physician-patient relationship is enforced in judicial proceedings by the rules of evidence, which preclude compelled testimony or production of evidence, and by the ethical rules of the medical profession, which prohibit disclosure of confidential information in non-judicial settings. 2
The privilege statute has not been construed as erecting an absolute bar to disclosure of confidences, but rather as creating a privilege held by the patient which only he, or his heirs or personal representative after his death, may waive. Stayner v. Nye (1949), 227 Ind. 231, 85 N.E.2d 496. Under Indiana law, the patient may waive the privilege either expressly or by implication. In Collins, 256 Ind. 230, 268 N.E.2d 95, this Court held that when a patient who is a party to a lawsuit places his mental or physical condition in issue, he has done an act which is so incompatible with an invocation of the physician-patient privilege as to that condition that he has impliedly waived the privilege to that extent.
Canfield asserts that when Sandock waived the physician-patient privilege by filing this lawsuit, all information concerning his health and medical history then became subject to discovery. Although Canfield is correct that, under Collins, Sandock did impliedly waive the privilege, he is incorrect in his assertion as to the extent of that waiver. Collins does not provide support for Canfield's proposition that when one files a suit, or otherwise places a physical or mental condition in issue, he opens up his entire medical record, past and present, for pre-trial examination by opposing party and counsel and, potentially, for exposure to the world at large in the forum of trial. Rather, Collins expressly and specifically held that,
[l]est the physician-patient privilege become nothing more than a legal...
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