People v. Newman
| Decision Date | 31 May 1973 |
| Citation | 32 N.Y.2d 379,298 N.E.2d 651,345 N.Y.S.2d 502 |
| Parties | , 298 N.E.2d 651 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Robert NEWMAN, Appellant. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
Thomas R. Newman, and Benjamin H. Siff, New York City, for appellant.
Frank S. Hogan, Dist. Atty. (Jonathan Lovett, and Michael R. Juviler, New York City, of counsel), for respondent.
St. John Barrett, Dep. Gen. Counsel, Dept. of HEW, Washington, D.C., Grasty Crews, II, Gen. Counsel, Sp. Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention, and Howard Holstein, Dept. of HEW, for the United States of America, amicus curiae.
Louise Lander, New York City, for MFY Legal Services, Inc., amicus curiae.
Jeremiah S. Gutman, New York City, for The New York Civil Liberties Union and others, amici curiae.
The principal question posed by this appeal--one of first impression--is whether the Director of the New York City Methadone Maintenance Treatment Program may validly refuse--when so authorized by the Attorney General of the United States and the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) pursuant to Federal legislation--to comply with a grand jury subpoena directing him to produce photographs of certain of his patients.
Talmadge Berry was shot and killed in Manhattan on June 7, 1972. A witness to the shooting told the police that she believed she had previously seen the killer in the waiting room of a methadone maintenance treatment clinic (known as Unit Number Two of the Francis Delafield Hospital Methadone Maintenance Treatment Program) where she was also a patient. Some time later, based on this information, a subpoena was served on Dr. Robert Newman--the Director of the New York City Methadone Maintenance Treatment Program--requiring him to produce photographs of Negro males between the ages of 21 and 35 who were patients at Unit Two of Delafield in 1972, prior to June 7.
A motion was subsequently made to quash the subpoena on the ground that both Federal legislation and New York law--CPLR 4504 (subd. (a)), Consol.Laws, c. 8--prohibited production of the photographs. That motion was denied and Dr. Newman was thereafter adjudged to be in contempt of court and sentenced to 30 days in jail. Although the Appellate Division recognized that the refusal of the appellant, Dr. Newman, to obey the subpoena was '(a)pparently motivated by the highest ethical canons of the medical profession in respect of confidential relations with a patient,' it agreed with Special Term that Dr. Newman was guilty of contempt (40 A.D.2d 633, 634, 336 N.Y.S.2d 127, 129; 40 A.D.2d 672). 1
In our court, as below, the appellant relies on both New York law (CPLR 4504, subd. (a)) and the Federal legislation enacted in 1970 (Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (P.L. 91--513; 84 U.S.Stat. 1236)).
Subdivision (a) of CPLR 4504, entitled 'Confidential information privileged', provides that, 'Unless the patient waives the privilege a person authorized to practice medicine * * * shall not be allowed to disclose any information which he acquired in attending a patient in a professional capacity, and which was necessary to enable him to act in that capacity.' Although it is doubtless true, as the appellant's affidavit recites, that the photos are 'an absolutely indispensable component of the patient records' because they ensure proper identification of the patient and thus avoid administration of methadone to the wrong person, we do not regard them--to employ the words of the statute--as having been 'acquired in attending a patient in a professional capacity'. Rather, they were obtained by the appellant's staff during administrative admission procedures. Their true role, therefore, is not to enable the doctor to act in his 'professional capacity' but to prevent unregistered patients from obtaining methadone and registered patients from obtaining the wrong dosage through administrative errors in identification. Serving solely such a medical management function, they may not be deemed privileged confidential information within the sense of the statute. This conclusion is supported by decisions holding that facts about a patient--which may be plainly observed or easily obtained by a layman--are not privileged. (See, e.g., Klein v. Prudential Ins. Co., 221 N.Y. 449, 453, 117 N.E. 942, 943; Edington v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 77 N.Y. 564, 571; In re Albert Lindley Lee Mem. Hosp., D.C., 115 F.Supp. 643, 646, affd., 2 Cir., 209 F.2d 122, cert. den. sub nom., Cincotta v. United States, 347 U.S. 960, 74 S.Ct. 709, 98 L.Ed. 1104; see, also, 5 Weinstein-Korn-Miller, N.Y.Civ.Prac., par. 4504.08.) Consequently, the appellant may not rely on New York's physician-patient privilege to justify nonproduction of the photographs. 2
Dr. Newman, as already indicated, also urges that the Federal Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (P.L. 91--513; 84 U.S.Stat. 1236)--hereafter referred to as the 1970 Act--and regulations issued under that Act prevent him from releasing the photographs. The District Attorney, on the other hand, contends that, pursuant to the Drug Abuse Office and Treatment Act of 1972 (P.L. 92--255; 86 U.S.Stat. 65)--hereafter referred to as the 1972 Act--the directors of methadone maintenance programs may be compelled to produce those records upon court order. Therefore, the issue posed upon this appeal is whether the 1972 Act repealed the 1970 Act insofar as the confidentiality of a patient's record is concerned.
Subdivision (a) of section 3 of the 1970 Act (U.S.Code, tit. 42, § 242a, subd. (a)) and subdivision (c) of section 502 (U.S.Code, tit. 21, § 872, subd. (c)) contain the controlling provisions. The first provided that the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare was empowered to authorize persons 'engaged in research on the use and effect of drugs' to 'protect the privacy of (the research subjects)' (i.e., the patients) by withholding their 'names or other identifying characteristics' from anyone not connected with the research program. 'Persons so authorized', the statute continued, 'may not be compelled in any Federal, State, or local civil, criminal, administrative, legislative, or other proceedings' to identify the research subjects. The other provision--subdivision (c) of section 502--granted the same authority to the Attorney General. By March of 1972, however, neither the Secretary of HEW nor the Attorney General had exercised the authority thus given to him.
Be that as it may, in that month, the 1972 Act--which, we note, was born of Congressional recognition that '(c)ontrol of drug abuse requires the development of a comprehensive, coordinated long-term Federal strategy' (U.S.Code, tit. 21, § 1101, subd. (8))--was enacted. Instead of sanctioning a grant of absolute confidentiality, similar to that provided by the 1970 Act for drug research programs, the 1972 Act authorized disclosure upon court order of the records of patients in a wide variety of drug programs and activities, entitled 'drug abuse prevention functions.' 3 More specifically, subdivision (a) of section 408 (U.S.Code, tit. 21, § 1175, subd. (a)) recited that 'Records of the identity, diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment of any patient which are maintained in connection with the performance of any drug abuse prevention function * * * shall be confidential,' subject, however, to disclosure upon authorization by 'a court of competent jurisdiction' after 'application showing good cause therefor' (subd. (b), par. (2), cl. (C)).
After The 1972 Act had been enacted, the Secretary of HEW and the Attorney General each exercised his power under The 1970 Act to authorize persons 'engaged in (drug) research' to withhold 'the names (and) other identifying characteristics' of the research subjects, that is, the patients. Thus, the Secretary of HEW published regulations which provide--with respect to the methadone maintenance treatment programs such as that conducted by the appellant--that 'information that would identify the patient will be kept confidential * * * and will not be divulged in any civil, criminal, administrative legislative, or other proceedings conducted by Federal, State, or local authorities' (37 Federal Register 6943). 4 The Attorney General, in a letter to Dr. Newman, dated November 8, 1972, also granted absolute confidentiality to patient records in his New York Methadone Maintenance Treatment Program. 5
A little more than a week after the Attorney General had granted absolute confidentiality to Dr. Newman's methadone program, the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention--established by the 1972 Act to 'provide overall planning and policy and establish objectives and priorities for all Federal drug abuse prevention functions' (U.S.Code, tit. 21, § 1131, subd. (a))--prepared, 'in consultation with the Department of Justice and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare,' an 'interpretative regulation' to 'deal comprehensively' with section 408, the confidentiality provision of the 1972 Act (37 Federal Register 24636). 'If society is to make significant progress in the struggle against drug abuse,' the regulation read, the directors of 'drug abuse treatment programs' must be able 'to assure patients and prospective patients of anonymity'. 6 The regulation also recited that the 1972 Act was not designed to repeal or amend the confidentiality provision of the 1970 Act (37 Federal Register 24639):
'Nothing in either the language or the legislative history of the (1972) Act indicates any intent on the part of Congress to amend the (confidentiality) provisions of the 1970 Act or to reduce the protection which can be afforded under them. * * * the language of section 408 permits * * * a construction which harmonizes with the 1970 Act (and) clearly should not be construed to authorize a court order in derogation of any exercise of the authority of the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Hernandez v. State
...a reasonable field of operation can be found for [both] statutes, that construction should be adopted" ( People v. Newman, 32 N.Y.2d 379, 390, 345 N.Y.S.2d 502, 298 N.E.2d 651 [1973], cert denied 414 U.S. 1163, 94 S.Ct. 927, 39 L.Ed.2d 116 [1974] ; see Local Government Assistance Corp. v. S......
-
Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, Inc. v. Department of Environmental Conservation
...grant of power to an agency ( Alweis v. Evans, 69 N.Y.2d 199, 204, 513 N.Y.S.2d 95, 505 N.E.2d 605, supra; People v. Newman, 32 N.Y.2d 379, 389-390, 345 N.Y.S.2d 502, 298 N.E.2d 651, cert. denied 414 U.S. 1163, 94 S.Ct. 927, 39 L.Ed.2d 116). Generally, a statute is not deemed impliedly modi......
-
Lynch v. City of N.Y.
...possible, give full effect to both" the Administrative Code and the Retirement and Social Security Law ( People v. Newman , 32 N.Y.2d 379, 389, 345 N.Y.S.2d 502, 298 N.E.2d 651 [1973], cert denied 414 U.S. 1163, 94 S.Ct. 927, 39 L.Ed.2d 116 [1974] ). We conclude that Retirement and Social S......
-
T.D. v. New York State Office of Mental Health
...409, 519 N.E.2d 320 citing Alweis v. Evans, 69 N.Y.2d 199, 204, 513 N.Y.S.2d 95, 505 N.E.2d 605, and People v. Newman, 32 N.Y.2d 379, 389-390, 345 N.Y.S.2d 502, 298 N.E.2d 651, cert denied 414 U.S. 1163, 94 S.Ct. 927, 39 L.Ed.2d 116). Generally, a statute is not deemed impliedly modified by......
-
Looking Back On Appeals That Made A Difference
...1974 when Charles Breitel became chief judge. Today, there is a writing in every case setting forth the reasons for the court's decision. 32 N.Y.2d 379 (1973), cert. den., 414 U.S. 1163 That's what older brothers are for. Dr. Newman was then a city employee who, ordinarily, would have had t......