Mull v. String
| Decision Date | 16 March 1984 |
| Citation | 448 So.2d 952 |
| Parties | Rast MULL v. Dr. Samuel Timothy STRING. 82-502. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Joseph J. Boswell, Mobile, for appellant.
W. Boyd Reeves of Armbrecht, Jackson, DeMouy, Crowe, Holmes & Reeves, Mobile, for appellee.
This is an appeal from a judgment granting a motion to dismiss a patient's action against his physician for breach of fiduciary duty and breach of implied contract based upon the physician's alleged unauthorized disclosure of confidential information pertaining to a physical injury which was then the subject of a malpractice action against a hospital.
On January 15, 1980, Rast Mull filed an action against Providence Hospital in Mobile, Alabama, contending that he had been burned by a heating pad while a patient in the hospital. Mull's attorney then wrote to Dr. Samuel Timothy String, the physician who treated Mull for this condition while Mull was in the hospital. The attorney stated that he represented Mull in his claim against the hospital and requested "a brief letter report setting forth [Dr. String's] diagnosis and prognosis of the specified injury." Attached to this letter was an "Authorization for Medical Information" form which requested Dr. String to disclose no information to any person without Mull's prior written consent.
In a letter to Mull's attorney dated August 15, 1980, Dr. String responded to this request, diagnosing Mull's injury as a necrosis of the right hip and stating that his successful treatment of the lesion rendered the prognosis excellent. Without receipt of written authorization from Mull, Dr. String then forwarded copies of this letter report to Providence Hospital and its attorney.
To determine Dr. String's opinion on the cause of Mull's injury, Mull's attorney deposed Dr. String, who testified that in his medical opinion the heating pad did not cause the condition complained of.
On April 23, 1982, Mull filed suit against Dr. String. The complaint alleged that Dr. String had breached his fiduciary duty and his implied contract with Mull by 1) unilaterally forwarding copies of his letter report to the hospital and its attorney without Mull's consent; 2) verbally disclosing to others his medical opinion on the cause of Mull's injuries without Mull's consent; and 3) failing to include his medical opinion on the cause of Mull's injuries in the letter report requested by Mull.
Mull sought compensatory and punitive damages from Dr. String, based upon the following alleged injuries: mental anguish; the cost of obtaining Dr. String's deposition; the discovery advantage given the hospital in the malpractice action; and impairment of settlement opportunities between Mull and the hospital.
Dr. String filed a motion to dismiss the action for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The motion was granted, and Mull filed a notice of appeal to this Court.
Mull contends that because Alabama clearly recognizes causes of action for breach of fiduciary duty and breach of implied contract when a physician makes unauthorized extra-judicial disclosures of information, the trial court erred in dismissing his complaint against Dr. String.
Dr. String argues that Mull's initiation of the lawsuit against the hospital, wherein the subsequently disclosed information was an issue, constituted a waiver of, or exception to, any obligation Dr. String owed to Mull.
In reviewing the grant of a motion to dismiss, this Court must take the allegations of the complaint most strongly in favor of the pleader to determine whether the plaintiff could prove any set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief. See Bahakel v. City of Birmingham, 427 So.2d 143 (Ala.1983); Rule 12(b)(6), A.R.Civ.P.
Alabama recognizes causes of action for breach of fiduciary duty and breach of implied contract resulting from a physician's unauthorized disclosure of information acquired during the physician-patient relationship, Horne v. Patton, 291 Ala. 701, 287 So.2d 824 (1973). The allegations that Dr. String breached these duties by unilaterally forwarding copies of his letter report of Mull's injuries to the hospital and its attorney and by verbally disclosing his medical opinion on the cause of these injuries to others without Mull's authorization would therefore seem at first blush to state claims upon which relief could be granted.
However, Mull's right to proceed with these causes of action is circumscribed by "exceptions prompted by the supervening interests of society, as well as the private interests of the patient himself." Horne v. Patton, 291 Ala. at 709, 287 So.2d at 830. This Court has never delineated the precise dimensions of these exceptions to determine whether a patient completely loses his right to non-disclosure upon initiation of litigation in which the information subsequently disclosed by the physician is in issue.
A survey of other jurisdictions' attempts to reconcile the conflicting policy considerations protecting the patient's privacy interest in non-disclosure, on the one hand, and the public's interest in full disclosure to obtain a just disposition of the controversy, on the other, compels our recognition of a limited exception to the physician's duty of non-disclosure.
In Quarles v. Sutherland, 215 Tenn. 651, 389 S.W.2d 249 (1965), the Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of a patient's action against a physician based on the physician's unauthorized disclosure of a letter report on the diagnosis and...
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