Joe v. Prison Health Services, Inc.
| Decision Date | 02 August 2001 |
| Citation | 782 A.2d 24 |
| Parties | Darlene JOE, Mother and Administratrix of the Estate of Darlene Lucretia Joe and Rashawn Feister, Minor by his Grandmother and Legal Guardian, Darlene Joe, Individually, v. PRISON HEALTH SERVICES, INC., c/o CT Corporation, America Service Group, Inc., City of Philadelphia, Emilio Caucci, DO, Michael Pompey, MD, Thomas J. Costello, Jeffrey Bairstow, c/o CT Corporation, Gerard Boyle, c/o CT Corporation, Michael Catalano, c/o CT Corporation, Becky Pinney Aka Regional Vice President PRI. Appeal of The City of Philadelphia and Prison Health Services, Inc. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court |
William D. Kennedy, Paoli, for appellants.
Raymond M. Bily, Philadelphia, for appellees.
Before DOYLE, President Judge, SMITH, Judge, and MIRARCHI, Jr., Senior Judge.
Reargument En Banc Withdrawn September 25, 2001.
The City of Philadelphia (City) and Prison Health Services, Incorporated appeal from an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County (trial court) which granted a motion to compel a request for production of documents filed by Darlene Joe, Mother and Administratrix of the Estate of Darlene Lucretia Joe and Rashawn Feister, Minor by his Grandmother and Legal Guardian, Darlene Joe, Individually (collectively, Plaintiffs). We affirm.
Darlene Lucretia Joe (Decedent) was an inmate in the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center from February 27, 1997 through July 28, 1997. On August 4, 1997, Decedent was pronounced dead at Allegheny Hospital. On February 23, 1999, Plaintiffs brought an action against the City and its prison health subcontractor, Prison Health Services, Incorporated (Prison Health or PHS), the corporate parent of Prison Health, several officers of Prison Health, the then-acting commissioner of Philadelphia Prisons, and two doctors. In the complaint, Plaintiffs alleged that on fifteen occasions from April 29, 1997 through June 30, 1997, Decedent requested health care services from Defendants and submitted sick call requests for recurrent headaches and related problems. The complaint alleged that Defendants failed to provide reasonable medical care and treatment to Decedent in accordance with accepted standards of medical care. The complaint further alleged that Decedent's death resulted from "primary pulmonary hypertension, cardiomegaly, hyperthyroidism, large mediastical mass and anoxic event which led to cerebral edema and cerebral herniation, the risk or presence of which were missed, ignored, undiagnosed, enhances and/or exacerbated by the defendants' care and treatment which deviated from accepted standards of medical practice." Paragraph 21 of the Complaint.
On April 26, 2000, Plaintiffs filed a motion to compel production of documents by Defendants. The motion was denied without prejudice by the trial court which instructed Plaintiffs to submit a specific request for production of documents. On May 2, 2000, Plaintiffs filed a request for the following documents:
Reproduced Record (R.R.), p. 37-38a. Each request referenced a specific location in the deposition of Rita Bryant, a healthcare coordinator for the City.
Defendants filed an answer to the request for production of documents, alleging one or more of the following objections to each request: overly broad, unduly burdensome, not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of evidence and requiring an unreasonable investigation. Defendants also alleged that the documents were protected from discovery pursuant to the Pennsylvania Medical Peer Review Act,1 the attorney-client privilege, the "self-critical analysis" and "deliberative process" doctrines.2 On July 12, 2000, the trial court granted Plaintiffs' motion. The trial court struck the first of Plaintiffs' seventeen requests and ordered Defendants to file full and complete answers to the other requests.3 Defendants then filed a request for reconsideration and an appeal to this Court. By order dated October 13, 2000, this Court ordered the parties to brief the issue of whether the order appealed from constitutes a collateral order pursuant to Pa. R.A.P. 313, along with the merits of the case.
On appeal, Defendants argue that the July 12, 2000 order is an appealable collateral order under Pa. R.A.P. 313, and that Plaintiffs' requests for production impermissibly invade the attorney-client privilege, the deliberative process privilege, the self-critical analysis privilege and the privilege established by the Peer Review Protection Act.
An appeal may be taken only from a final order unless otherwise permitted by statute or rule. Ben v. Schwartz, 556 Pa. 475, 729 A.2d 547 (1999). A final order is ordinarily one which ends the litigation or disposes of the entire case. Id. Under Rule 313(a), an appeal may be taken as of right from a collateral order of an administrative agency or lower court. A collateral order is defined in Rule 313(b) as "an order separable from and collateral to the main cause of action where the right involved is too important to be denied review and the question presented is such that if review is postponed until final judgment in the case, the claim will be irreparably lost."
Defendants argue that the July 12, 2000 order meets the requirements of Rule 313. Defendants contends that the privileges which they cite, the attorney-client, the peer review, the deliberative process and the self-critical analysis privileges, are sufficiently separable from the main cause of action, raise important issues, and are subject to irreparable loss.
In Ben, our Supreme Court considered whether an order directing the Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs to produce its investigative files pertaining to complaints filed against a dentist was appealable as a collateral order. The Bureau had asserted that the information in the files was privileged and not subject to discovery. The Court first determined that the issue of privilege was separate from the merits of the underlying action for purposes of the collateral order doctrine. The Court next determined that the issue implicated rights rooted in public policy and impacted on individuals other than those involved in the litigation. Finally, the Court found that if review of the order permitting discovery of the Bureau's investigative files was postponed until final judgment in the case, the claim would be irrevocably lost.
Applying the reasoning of Ben to the case before us, we conclude that the July 12, 2000 order is an appealable collateral order. The privilege issues can be addressed without reference to the merits of the underlying action; the privileges asserted are sufficiently important for review; and, if the documents were disclosed, subsequent appellate review would be moot.
Defendants next argue that Plaintiffs' requests for production of documents impermissibly invade the privileges. Pennsylvania law does not favor evidentiary privileges. Commonwealth v. Stewart, 547 Pa. 277, 690 A.2d 195 (1997).
`[E]xceptions to the demand for every man's evidence are not lightly created nor expansively construed, for they are in derogation of the search for truth.' Hutchison v. Luddy, 414 Pa.Super. 138, 146, 606 A.2d 905, 908 (1992) (quoting Herbert v. Lando, 441 U.S. 153, 175, 99 S.Ct. 1635, 1648, 60 L.Ed.2d 115 (1979)). Thus, courts should accept testimonial privileges `only to the very limited extent that permitting a refusal to testify or excluding relevant evidence has a public good transcending the normally predominant principle of utilizing all rational means for ascertaining the truth.' In re Grand Jury Investigation, 918 F.2d 374, 383 (3d Cir.1990) (quoting Trammel v. United States, 445 U.S. 40, 46, 100 S.Ct. 906, 910, 63 L.Ed.2d 186 (1980)).
The attorney-client privilege is codified in Section 5928 of the Judicial Code, 42 Pa.C.S. § 5928, which provides that "[i]n a civil matter counsel shall not be competent or permitted to testify to confidential communications made to him by his client, nor shall the client be compelled to disclose the same, unless in either case this privilege is waived upon trial by the client." The attorney-client privilege is intended to foster candid communications between legal counsel and the client so that counsel can provide legal advice based upon the most complete information possible from the client. Commonwealth v. Chmiel, 558 Pa. 478, 738 A.2d 406 (1999). The historical concern has been that, absent the attorney-client privilege, the client may be reluctant to fully disclose all the facts necessary to obtain informed legal advice if these facts may later be exposed to public scrutiny. Id.
Application of the privilege requires confidential communications made in...
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