Community Hospital Ass'n v. District Court In and For Boulder County
| Decision Date | 26 September 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. 27719,27719 |
| Citation | 194 Colo. 98,570 P.2d 243 |
| Parties | The COMMUNITY HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION, Petitioner, v. DISTRICT COURT IN AND FOR the COUNTY OF BOULDER, State of Colorado, the Honorable Richard W. Dana, District Court Judge and Esther R. Cortez, Respondents. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
Yegge, Hall & Evans, Paul D. Cooper, Denver, for petitioner.
Bragg & Dubofsky, P. C., Frank N. Dubofsky, Stephen H. Cook, Boulder, for respondents.
In this original proceeding we were asked to vacate and set aside an order of the respondent court in which the petitioner (the Hospital) was ordered to produce medical records. We issued a rule to show cause. The matter is now at issue, and we discharge the rule.
The respondent Cortez brought an action, which is now pending, against Ruben Brochner, M.D., and the Hospital. She alleged that the defendant physician fraudulently and negligently advised her in November of 1968 that she had a brain tumor which required immediate surgery; that the doctor negligently performed an unneeded craniotomy on her at the Hospital; and that the doctor had held staff surgical privileges at the Hospital on a continuing basis since the summer of 1964.
Respondent Cortez alleges several theories against the Hospital. Underlying these is the contention that the Hospital had sufficient prior information to be put on notice that the defendant physician was an incompetent, overaggressive neurosurgeon with a history of performing unnecessary operations, particularly elective craniotomies.
She has obtained testimony in depositions from other physicians to the effect that these physicians believed or suspected that Doctor Brochner was performing unnecessary brain surgeries at the Hospital. It appears that the doctor operated on 140 patients at the Hospital between 1964 and 1968.
The respondent court ordered the Hospital to produce copies of all pre-operative consultations, operative notes, interpretations of pre-operative x-rays and brain tissue analyses obtained on these 140 patients. The order contained the following:
The Hospital urges that, since consent has not been obtained from any of the 140 patients, the production order is in violation of the physician-patient privilege statute, which reads:
"A physician or surgeon duly authorized to practice his profession under the laws of this state, or any other state, shall not be examined without the consent of his patient as to any information acquired in attending the patient, which was necessary to enable him to prescribe or act for the patient . . .." Section 13-90-107(d), C.R.S. 1973.
The respondent court stated that it was not persuaded that the spirit or letter of the physician-patient privilege would be violated by compliance with its order.
The court has adequately protected the 140 patients from disclosure of their identity and the surgeries performed upon them. It is the position of the Hospital that, while identities are not to be disclosed, the statute forbids any disclosure of this type of information without the consent of the particular patient. We do not agree with this argument and hold that the purpose of the statute has been achieved by the conditions imposed by the respondent court.
This statute is in derogation of the common law. It, and many similar statutes in other states, were adopted to achieve the purpose of placing a patient in a position in which he or she would be more inclined to make a full disclosure to the doctor and to prevent the patient from being humiliated and embarrassed by disclosure of information about the patient by his or her doctor. C. DeWitt, Privileged Communications Between Physician and Patient, § 9 (1958); McCormick's Handbook of the Law of Evidence, § 98 et seq. (2d ed. E. Cleary...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Gray v. District Court of Eleventh Judicial Dist.
...Court, 668 P.2d 3, 8 (Colo.1983); see, e.g., People v. Taylor, 618 P.2d 1127, 1140 (Colo.1980); Community Hospital Association v. District Court, 194 Colo. 98, 100, 570 P.2d 243, 244 (1977). This privilege prohibits both testimonial disclosures in court and pretrial discovery of information......
-
Wipf v. Altstiel
...disease or disorder ... or as to any such knowledge obtained by personal examination of the patient"); Cmty. Hosp. Ass'n v. District Court, 194 Colo. 98, 570 P.2d 243, 244–45 (1977) ; (interpreting Colorado's privilege rule, Colo.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 13–90–107(d) (West 1973), which protected "a......
-
Roe v. Planned Parenthood Sw. Ohio Region
...Ziegler v. Superior Court in and for Pima Cty. (1982), 134 Ariz. 390, 394, 656 P.2d 1251; and Community Hosp. Assn. v. Dist. Court in and for Boulder Cty. (1977), 194 Colo. 98, 100, 570 P.2d 243. See also Amisub, Inc. v. Kemper (Fla.App.1989), 543 So.2d 470; Rudnick v. Superior Court of Ker......
-
People v. Marquez
...privilege. 7 Because the privilege is statutorily created, it must be strictly construed. Community Hospital Association v. District Court, 194 Colo. 98, 100, 570 P.2d 243, 244 (1977). The privilege covers "any information acquired in attending the patient, which was necessary to enable him......
-
Original Proceedings in the Colorado Supreme Court
...text, supra. 70. Tyler, supra, note 17 (expressly based on both mandamus and prohibition); Community Hospital Assoc. v. District Court, 194 Colo. 98, 570 P.2d 243 (1977) (impliedly based on both grounds, involving the limited production of surgical records of non-parties). 71. People ex rel......
-
The Authorization to Release Medical Information Form: Its Genesis and Usage
...of Deeds, 133 Colo. 85 at 91,293 P.2d 643(1956) and cases cited therein. 10. Community Hospital Assoc. v. District Court of Boulder, 194 Colo. 98, 570 P.2d 243 (1977). 11. C.R.S. 1973, § 12-43.5-102(e); Posey v. District Court, 196 Colo. 396, 586 P.2d 36 (1978), contra, Davidson v. Light, 7......