Rocca v. Southern Hills Counseling Center, Inc.

• Decision Date: 18 October 1996
• Docket Number: No. 19A01-9601-CV-10,19A01-9601-CV-10
• Citation: 671 N.E.2d 913
• Parties: Patricia Hilsmeyer ROCCA, Appellant-Respondent, v. SOUTHERN HILLS COUNSELLING CENTER, INC., Appellee-Petitioner. 1 .
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

Page 913

671 N.E.2d 913

Patricia Hilsmeyer ROCCA, Appellant-Respondent, v. SOUTHERN HILLS COUNSELLING CENTER, INC., Appellee-Petitioner.

No. 19A01-9601-CV-10 ¹.

Court of Appeals of Indiana.

Oct. 18, 1996.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 10, 1996.

Gerald W. Mayer, Indianapolis, for Appellant-Respondent.

Neil B. Chapman, William E. Statham, Statham, Johnson & McCray, Evansville, for Appellee-Petitioner.

OPINION

ROBERTSON, Judge.

Patricia Hilsmeyer Rocca filed a proposed malpractice complaint against Southern Hills Counseling Center, Inc., in which she claimed that Southern Hills had failed to follow the applicable standard of care when it had disclosed matters related to her mental health records to a third party. A medical review panel formed to consider the proposed complaint. Pursuant to Indiana's Medical Malpractice Act, Southern Hills filed a petition for a preliminary determination of law with the Dubois Circuit Court for matters then pending before the medical review panel. The trial court determined that, as a matter of law, the applicable statute "did not prohibit Southern Hills from making the disclosure of the death threats made by Patricia Hilsmeyer-Rocca." On appeal, Rocca claims the determination of the trial court is erroneous. We affirm.

In a medical malpractice case, a trial court has only limited jurisdiction prior to the submission of an expert opinion by a medical review panel. Dixon v. Siwy, 661 N.E.2d 600 (Ind.Ct.App.1996). Most pertinent to the present case, a trial court has jurisdiction, before the panel has rendered an opinion, to determine issues of law or fact that may be preliminarily determined under Trial Rule 12(D). Id. The trial court, however, has no jurisdiction to rule preliminarily upon any issue of law or fact preserved for a written opinion by the medical review panel. Id. Issues preserved for the review panel include those pertaining to whether the defendant failed to meet the standard of care in treating the plaintiff, and it is clear that the trial court has no jurisdiction to rule upon whether the defendant met the standard of care until the review panel has submitted its report. Id. Further, Trial Rule 12(D) allows preliminary determination of defenses specifically enumerated in Trial Rule 12(B)(1) through (8). T.R. 12(D). If an assertion of the defense of failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted contains matters outside the pleadings, then the motion shall be treated as one for summary judgment and disposed of accordingly. T.R. 12(B). We note that, even though there may be conflicting facts or conflicting inferences which might be drawn from undisputed facts as to certain elements of a claim, summary judgment is nevertheless appropriate where there is no real conflict regarding a fact dispositive of the litigation. Stump v. Indiana Equipment Co., Inc., 601 N.E.2d 398, 407 (Ind.Ct.App.1992), trans. denied.

The evidence reveals that Rocca had a history of substance abuse for which she had sought treatment from Southern Hills, among others. In December of 1985, someone murdered Rocca's daughter. Rocca sought inpatient treatment for depression. Eventually, Rocca was the subject of an involuntary commitment at Southern Hills with an emergency detention. Southern Hills then petitioned the trial court for a regular, involuntary commitment order based upon Rocca's depression and substance abuse and because she was a danger to herself and others. The trial court issued the order of involuntary commitment, and Southern Hills soon placed Rocca on an outpatient treatment regimen as a part of her involuntary commitment. During the course of treatment, Rocca stated on several occasions that she would kill herself and the man accused of the murder of her daughter.

The Southern Hills staff met and decided that someone should inform the accused murderer about Rocca's death threats. A therapist from Southern Hills contacted the attorney for the accused and informed him of the threats. Rocca was not informed about the proposed disclosure and did not consent to the actual disclosure. After the disclosure, some details of Rocca's medical treatment became public. Rocca claimed the disclosures caused her damage. Rocca alleged in her proposed complaint to the Indiana Department of Insurance that she was under the care of Southern Hills and that Southern Hills was careless and negligent in its care and treatment of her. Specifically, Rocca claimed that, as a direct and proximate result of the Southern Hills negligence:

1) she was fired from her job and lost wages;

2) publicity was given to her most intimate thoughts and feelings;

3) she incurred medical expenses;

4) she suffered humiliation, embarrassment, pain and suffering, and emotional distress; and

5) her belief that she could be helped by the therapeutic process was destroyed at a time when she most needed it.

Rocca claims that the information Southern Hills obtained during her treatment was confidential and that Southern Hills should not have disclosed her threats to anyone. She claims Southern Hills breached the applicable standard of care when it did so.

We first examine whether Southern Hills had a duty to keep the information confidential. On appeal, Rocca does not claim such a duty arises in the areas of tort, see Doe v. Methodist Hospital, 639 N.E.2d 683 (Ind.Ct.App.1994) (public disclosure of private facts), or of contract, see Ind.Code 16-9.5-1-1(h) ("malpractice" means tort or breach of contract). She claims the duty exists pursuant to a mental health records statute in effect at the time of the disclosures:

All information obtained and maintained in the course of providing services to a patient or client is confidential and shall be disclosed only with the consent of the patient or client, unless otherwise provided in IC 16-4-8-7, in this section, or in section 8.5 of this chapter.

I.C. 16-14-1.6-8(b). As Rocca correctly notes, none of the exceptions provided in the statutes apply under the facts of this case. As we discuss later in this opinion, our legislature had not yet passed a statute related to immunity from liability for disclosure of confidential information when Southern Hills disclosed the death threats in the present case.

Southern Hills first claims that I.C. 16-14-1.6-8(b) applies only to written or printed records. The subsection plainly states, however, that it applies to all information obtained and maintained. During the course of treatment, Southern Hills obtained information about the death threats Rocca made and maintained that information in her mental health record. As far as the language of the statute is concerned, the information was confidential and should have been disclosed only with Rocca's consent.

The language employed in the statute leads inescapably to the conclusion that Southern Hills had a duty to keep the information confidential and not disclose it. Southern Hills claims, however, that any statutory duty to keep the information confidential existed in conjunction with an affirmative duty to disclose the information to the accused murderer.

At this point, we emphasize that we remain cognizant of those issues not involved in the present case and keep focused upon those issues properly before us. Here, we do not address whether Southern Hills owed a duty to the accused murderer to conform its conduct to a standard of care which might have arisen from the relationship among the accused, Rocca, and Southern Hills. This case does not involve a lawsuit between the accused murderer and Southern Hills. In the present case, a patient has sued her health care provider for unauthorized disclosure of confidential information and the health care provider has asserted that it justifiably disclosed the information under the circumstances as they existed at the time.

At the time of the disclosure, our legislature had not yet passed I.C. 34-4-12.4-1 through 4, an enactment which relates to immunity for a failure to warn reasonably identifiable victims. Southern Hills nonetheless claims that the statutes merely codify a part of our common law which allows Southern Hills an immunity from liability for disclosure of Rocca's death threats.

We therefore must consider whether our common law recognizes an exception to the statutory duty to keep matters confidential. Southern Hills notes that principles of medical ethics support the disclosure of confidential matters if such a disclosure becomes necessary in order to protect the welfare of the individual or of the community. For the reasons listed below, we conclude that public policy supports such a disclosure of confidential information.

We begin our consideration of those public policy principles with the examination of certain Indiana statutes. We note that the mental health records statute is a provision which deals with confidential information but that our legislature has enacted other statutes which also involve such information. The effort to protect confidential information from disclosure certainly is no stranger to either the legal profession or the medical profession.

One method the legislature has employed to protect confidential information is the enactment of a statutory privilege, such as the attorney-client privilege and the physician patient privilege:

Except as otherwise provided by statute, the following persons shall not be competent witnesses:

* * * * * *

(2) Attorneys, as to confidential communications made to them in the course of their professional business, and as to advice given in such cases.

(3) Physicians, as to matters communicated to them, as such, by patients, in the course of their professional business, or advice given in such cases.

I.C. 34-1-14-5. See also, I.C. 34-1-60-4 (duties of attorney to maintain confidence). Our supreme court has noted the following about the physician-patient privilege:

This privilege did not exist at common law, but was statutorily created "for the purpose of...