Sierra Vista Hospital v. Superior Court for San Luis Obispo County

• Citation: 248 Cal.App.2d 359,56 Cal.Rptr. 387
• Court: California Court of Appeals
• Decision Date: 06 February 1967
• Parties: SIERRA VISTA HOSPITAL, a corporation, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California FOR the COUNTY OF SAN LUIS OBISPO, Respondent; Evelyn SHAFFER and Richard Shaffer, Real Parties in Interest. Civ. 31253.

Page 387

56 Cal.Rptr. 387

248 Cal.App.2d 359

SIERRA VISTA HOSPITAL, a corporation, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California FOR the COUNTY OF SAN LUIS OBISPO, Respondent Evelyn SHAFFER and Richard Shaffer, Real Parties in Interest.

Civ. 31253.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 2, California.

Feb. 6, 1967.

Archbald, Zelezny & Spray and Malcolm Archbald, Santa Barbara, for petitioner.

No appearance for respondent.

Trapp & Kirk and Daniel J. Kirk, Santa Maria, for real parties in interest.

McCOY, ^* Justice pro tem.

In the early part of 1963 Evelyn Shaffer was a patient in the Sierra Vista Hospital in San Luis Obispo apparently under the care of a Dr. Prier. Sometime after her release from the hospital she and her husband filed an action in the respondent court against Dr. Prier and the hospital, among others, seeking to recover damages resulting from their alleged negligence.

After the action was at issue, plaintiffs' attorneys served an interrogatory asking the hospital whether any investigations or other reports were 'prepared, compiled, submitted or made by you or on your behalf or by or on behalf of any insurance company in the regular course of business or in preparation for litigation, as a result of the injuries and damages claimed by plaintiff in this action.' This interrogatory was answered in June 1964, on behalf of the hospital by W. Travis Wilson, its administrator, as follows: 'Yes; a confidential report of incident was made on March 5, 1963, by Irene Brown, Director of Nursing Services, and W. Travis Wilson, Hospital Administrator. This report was sent to Truck Insurance Exchange as confidential information for the purpose of preparing to defend Sierra Vista Hospital in the event a law suit should be filed by Evelyn Shaffer. Custody of this report is with Truck Insurance Exchange. A protostatic copy is in possession of Malcolm Archbald, attorney for Sierra Vista Hospital.' Plaintiffs took the deposition of Travis Wilson in May 1965. In the absence of any showing to the contrary, we assume that Travis Wilson was not named as a party to the action.

In August 1966 plaintiffs noticed a motion for an order requiring the hospital to produce the incident report of March 1963 for inspection by their attorneys. The motion was made on the ground that the report 'is not privileged * * * and constitutes evidence which is relevant to the subject matter' of the action and material to the issues to be filed. The court granted plaintiffs' motion on November 9 and a week later signed the order here under review requiring the hospital to produce the report for inspection.

Petitioner contends that the order for the production of the incident report constitutes an abuse of the court's discretion. We agree. 'In a legal sense discretion is abused whenever in the exercise of its discretion that court exceeds the bounds of reason, all of the circumstances before it being considered.' (Berry v. Chaplin, 74 Cal.App.2d 669, 672, 169 P.2d 453, 456, quoted with approval in State Farm etc. Ins. Co. v. Superior Court, 47 Cal.2d 428, 432, 304 P.2d 13.) In view of our conclusion that the report is privileged, the order is also in excess of the court's jurisdiction. Section 2031, Code of Civil Procedure, expressly limits inspection to matters that are 'not privileged.' Section 2016, subdivision (b), provides that 'All matters which are privileged against disclosure upon the trial under the law of this State are privileged against disclosure through any discovery procedure.'

The primary question before us is whether the incident report is privileged within the meaning of section 2031, Code of Civil Procedure, providing for the production and inspection of documents which are 'not privileged.' The term 'not privileged' as used in this and other sections relating to discovery 'refers to 'privileges' as that term is understood in the law of evidence.' (United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1, 6, 73 S.Ct. 528, 531, 97 L.Ed. 727.) In our opinion the report is protected from discovery by reason of the attorney-client privilege as established by former section 1881, Code of Civil Procedure, which was applicable at the time the trial court made its order. (See Evid.Code, § 12.) It would be equally protected from discovery by reason of the attorney-client privilege established by section 952 of the Evidence Code. This privilege is founded upon the 'belief that the benefits derived therefrom justify the risk that unjust decisions may sometimes result from the suppression of relevant evidence.' (City & County of San Francisco v. Superior Court, 37 Cal.2d 227, 235, 231 P.2d 26, 30, 25 A.L.R.2d 1418.)

The petitioner, Sierra Vista Hospital, is a corporation. As such, it is entitled to claim the same protection of the attorney-client privilege in a proper case as that enjoyed by a natural person. (D. I. Chadbourne, Inc. v. Superior Court, 60 Cal.2d 723, 736, 36 Cal.Rptr. 468, 477, 388 P.2d 700, 709; People ex rel. Dept. of Public Works v. Glen Arms Estate, Inc., 230 Cal.App.2d 841, 856, 41 Cal.Rptr. 303.) These cases hold that a corporation shall 'not be given greater privileges than are enjoyed by a natural person merely because it must utilize a person in order to speak.' In all such cases, however, the power of a reviewing court is limited. As the court said in Chadbourne (p. 729, 36 Cal.Prtr. p. 472, 388 P.2d p. 704), if the facts support the contention that the communication involved 'was privileged as a matter of law, respondent court was required to deny the motion for inspection (§ 2016, subd. (b)). If, however, the claimed privilege does not appear as a matter of law, but presented a question of fact, then the determination of the trial court may not be set aside. When the facts, or reasonable inferences from the facts, shown in support of or in opposition to the claim of privilege are in conflict, the determination of whether the evidence supports one conclusion or the other is for the trial court, and a reviewing court may not disturb such finding if there is any substantial evidence to support it (Holm v. Superior Court, 42 Cal.2d 500, 507, 267 P.2d 1025, 268 P.2d 722; San Diego Professional Assn. v. Superior Court, 58 Cal.2d 194, 202, 23 Cal.Rptr. 384, 373 P.2d 448, (97 A.L.R.2d 761)). The party claiming privilege carries the burden of showing that the evidence which it seeks to suppress is within the terms of the statute. (Tanzola v. De Rita, 45 Cal.2d 1, and cases cited at p. 6, 285 P.2d 897, and cases cited at p. 899; see also, Brotsky v. State Bar, 57 Cal.2d 287, 303, 19 Cal.Rptr. 153, 368 P.2d 697, (94 A.L.R.2d 1310).) It follows that the writ should not issue unless privilege appears, as a matter of law, from the undisputed facts set forth in the declarations.'

The determinative facts of this case are undisputed. The only evidence submitted in support of the motion was a transcript of the deposition of Travis Wilson, the hospital administrator. The declaration of plaintiffs' attorney filed in support of the motion does not allege any facts within his knowledge bearing on the question of privilege. The court also had before it the declaration of Travis Wilson and the declaration of Malcolm Archbald, one of the petitioners' attorneys, in opposition to the motion. Copies of these several documents are a part of the record here.

It appears from the Wilson declaration that his duties as administrator of the hospital are those of general business manager that all of the personnel of the hospital are under his direction, and that it is 'one of my specific duties to protect the Hospital from any cause that might subject the Hospital to any kind of legal action or liability.' From the time of his employment in September 1959, when the hospital commenced operations, it has carried liability insurance with Truck Insurance Exchange, which has always supplied him with printed forms on which to make a confidential report of all 'incidents.' He was instructed by the insurance company to use this form to report all incidents which might result in litigation against the hospital and send the reports to the insurance company to be transmitted to and used by the attorney representing the hospital in the event of litigation.

With respect to the incident involving the plaintiff Evelyn Shaffer, Wilson alleged in his declaration that on March 1, 1963, when she was a patient in the hospital, he received information of an incident which led him to believe that she 'would possibly file a suit for damages against the hospital arising out of that incident.' In order to obtain information to defend such a lawsuit, he directed Irene Brown, the director of nursing services at...