Patel v. OMH Medical Center, Inc.

• Decision Date: 27 April 1999
• Docket Number: No. 89, No. 582., No. 90, No. 489
• Citation: 987 P.2d 1185,1999 OK 33
• Parties: Urvashi B. PATEL, Appellee, v. OMH MEDICAL CENTER, INC., an Oklahoma Corporation, Saint Francis Hospital, Inc., an Oklahoma corporation, and John B. Stevens, an individual, Appellants. Urvashi B. Patel, Appellant, v. OMH Medical Center, Inc., an Oklahoma Corporation, Saint Francis Hospital, Inc., an Oklahoma corporation, Larry D. Henry, an individual, and Arrington, Kihle, Gaberino & Dunn, Inc., Appellees.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

987 P.2d 1185

1999 OK 33

Urvashi B. PATEL, Appellee, v. OMH MEDICAL CENTER, INC., an Oklahoma Corporation, Saint Francis Hospital, Inc., an Oklahoma corporation, and John B. Stevens, an individual, Appellants.

Urvashi B. Patel, Appellant, v. OMH Medical Center, Inc., an Oklahoma Corporation, Saint Francis Hospital, Inc., an Oklahoma corporation, Larry D. Henry, an individual, and Arrington, Kihle, Gaberino & Dunn, Inc., Appellees.

Nos. 90,489, 89,582.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

April 27, 1999.

Rehearing Denied September 30, 1999.

Clifford N. Ribner, Tulsa, Oklahoma, for Urvashi B. Patel, Appellee in Cause No. 90,489 and Appellant in Cause No. 89,582.

Larry D. Henry, Vivian C. Hale, Patrick W. Cipolla, Gable Gotwals Mock Schwabe Kihle Gaberino, Tulsa, Oklahoma, for Appellants, OMH Medical Center, Inc., St. Francis Hospital, Inc., and John B. Stevens, in Cause No. 90,489 and for Appellees, OMH Medical Center, Inc. and St. Francis Hospital, Inc., in Cause No. 89,582.

James M. Sturdivant, Vivian C. Hale, and Patrick Cipolla, Gable Gotwals Mock Schwabe Kihle Gaberino, Tulsa, Oklahoma, for Appellees, Larry D. Henry and Arrington, Kihle, Gaberino & Dunn, in Cause No. 89,582.

OPALA, J.

¶ 1 The dispositive issues tendered in these appeals are (1) whether the trial judge abused her discretion in ordering the Patel I judgment vacated, and (2) whether the litigation-related misconduct alleged here may be redressed through a civil action in tort. We answer the first question in the affirmative and the second in the negative.

I THE ANATOMY OF LITIGATION

¶ 2 Dr. Urvashi B. Patel ("Patel" or "plaintiff"), an anesthesiologist, entered into a contract in June 1992 with OMH Medical Center, Inc. ("OMH") to practice anesthesiology and serve as director of anesthesia at OMH's medical facility in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. The contract provided that, after Patel relocated to the Okmulgee area, either party could terminate the contract for any reason or for no reason at all by giving the other party one hundred and twenty days advance written notice and by paying to the other party a termination fee of $50,000. Patel moved to the Okmulgee area and worked at OMH for a little more than one year.

¶ 3 In October 1993, OMH invoked the termination provision of the contract with Patel, but tendered only a portion of the contractual termination fee, claiming an off-set for its payment of Patel's malpractice insurance. Conversations took place between Patel and one or more agents of OMH concerning the amount of money owed to her under the contract and the quality of the professional recommendations OMH would provide to Patel as she sought new employment. In Patel I, these conversations were characterized by OMH as contract renegotiations, but portrayed by Patel as attempts to coerce her to abandon her contractual termination fee.

¶ 4 Whatever their purpose, the conversations came to nought, and Patel sued OMH, Saint Francis Hospital, Inc., and John B. Stevens (collectively, "defendants")¹ for breach-of-contract damages, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and "prima facie tort" in connection with the termination of her contract.² The trial resulted in a jury verdict against defendant OMH alone on Patel's contract claim and for all defendants on the tort claims. Both Patel and OMH appealed. The Court of Civil Appeals, Division III, in an unpublished opinion filed 14 May 1996, affirmed.³ Patel's petition for certiorari was denied.

¶ 5 Shortly after accepting payment in satisfaction of the judgment and after the mandate in Patel I issued, plaintiff filed the first proceeding under review today ("Patel II"), seeking to vacate, pursuant to the provisions of 12 O.S.1991 § 1031(4), that portion of the Patel I judgment which rejected defendants' liability on her tort claims. Patel alleges that the judgment was obtained through fraud committed on Patel and on the trial court in connection with the judge's decision in the Patel I trial to admit into evidence a certain defense exhibit ("Exhibit 1").

¶ 6 Exhibit 1 was a negative evaluation of Patel's professional performance provided to OMH by Scotland Memorial Hospital ("SMH"), the medical facility at which Patel worked prior to joining the staff of OMH. It was prepared by Mark W. Matson, M.D., Chair, Department of Surgery, a colleague of Patel at SMH⁴ At the Patel I trial, OMH sought to introduce Exhibit 1, not for the truth of its contents, but for the purpose of rebutting an expert witness who testified on Patel's behalf that Patel would have suffered severe harm to her medical career had OMH carried out its alleged threats to deny her good references. In the expert's opinion, a doctor who had a negative reference in her file could not be hired. Exhibit 1 was offered to show that OMH had hired Patel despite the negative reference in her file from Dr. Matson, thereby rebutting Patel's expert witness.⁵

¶ 7 Patel objected to the admission into evidence of Exhibit 1. At a bench conference held to discuss the objection,⁶ Patel's attorney stated that an OMH source had told his client that her OMH credentialing file contained a document from, or prepared from statements made by, another doctor who had worked with Patel at SMH. According to Patel, this document explicitly refuted the negative evaluation provided by Dr. Matson, characterizing Dr. Matson's attitude toward Patel as one of personal animosity.⁷ Neither Patel nor her attorney had actually seen this document. Patel's attorney further informed the judge that he had only been told a few days before trial that Dr. Matson's negative evaluation would be offered into evidence and that he had responded to that information by insisting that the entire file in which it was kept be produced.

¶ 8 The transcript of the bench conference shows that the court was clearly reluctant to admit Exhibit 1 into evidence. The OMH witness offering it had not been responsible for the file at the time it was created, and defendants had not brought to the trial the original file in its entirety. The court asked defendants' attorney several times in various ways whether there was anything in the file of the nature described by Patel's attorney. The answer was repeatedly that there was not and that Exhibit 1 was a complete document in itself. At one point, the court tried to pin down an answer by stating,

". . . The point is not that this document is incomplete but that there may be something in the file that references this document that explains it or further modifies it in some respect. . . . He is entitled to have that produced . . ."

Defendants' attorney responded,

"There is nothing in the file of that nature. There are contradictory references from that city."

¶ 9 The judge then stated that she thought she needed to look at the file, but after being informed that the file was in Okmulgee, she decided to admit Exhibit 1 into evidence and permit Patel to offer testimony in rebuttal. Patel's attorney responded to the court's decision by saying,

"Okay. That is fine."

¶ 10 Exhibit 1 was admitted into evidence. Patel's rebuttal testimony contraposed her unsubstantiated belief about the contents of her credentialing file to defendants' documentary evidence. Patel argues that the admission of Exhibit 1 without the refuting document left the jury with the false impression that a negative reference would not be an impediment to a doctor's future employment. Exhibit 1, she asserts, would have had little or no probative value at all on that issue if the existence of the refuting document had been known.

¶ 11 In her petition to vacate, Patel alleged that defendants' representations to the court regarding the contents of Patel's OMH file were false, that they were relied upon by the court in admitting Exhibit 1, and that the admission of Exhibit 1 tainted the verdict both because its negative contents prejudiced the jury against Patel and because it falsely rebutted a central contention in Patel's case, i.e. that a negative reference would severely harm her medical career.

¶ 12 In response to the petition to vacate, defendants filed a motion to dismiss, which was denied. Patel filed a motion for summary judgment. Oral arguments on the motion for summary judgment were heard on 27 March 1997. At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court stated that she was not prepared to rule on the motion at that time, but would review the parties' submissions and make a decision at a later date.

¶ 13 On 14 November 1997 the trial court issued a ruling entitled "Order on Plaintiff's Petition to Vacate in Part." Neither in the title nor in the body of the instrument did the court specifically state whether the order was responsive to Patel's motion for summary judgment, but it did state that the court had "reviewed and considered the parties' submissions on Plaintiff's Petition to Vacate Judgment in Part, including their briefs, affidavits, exhibits, oral arguments, and case authority." The court quoted extensively from the record of the bench conference and then concluded,

"Mr. Henry made a specific representation to the Court that there was nothing in the file of the nature about which the Court was clearly concerned. This representation was, in fact, false, there being in the file a typed memorandum by Karen Legg, OMH's risk manager, who kept the credentialing files, regarding a call from Dr. Parkes at Scotland Memorial, a memorandum on this very point and falling squarely within the category sought by the Court. Dr. Parkes called specifically to refute Dr. Matson's negative reference and to explain the circumstances under which Dr. Matson criticized the Plaintiff's professional conduct, a negative evaluation which Dr. Parkes stated was `strictly of a personal nature' and constituted a `lack of professionalism on Dr. Matson's part.' . . . Mr. Henry [defendants' attorney] made the representation knowing that the Court was relying on it as a true representation of

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