State ex rel. BNSF Ry. Co. v. Neill

• Decision Date: 31 January 2012
• Docket Number: No. SC 91706.,SC 91706.
• Citation: 356 S.W.3d 169
• Parties: STATE ex rel. BNSF RAILWAY COMPANY, Relator, v. The Honorable Mark H. NEILL, Respondent.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

356 S.W.3d 169

STATE ex rel. BNSF RAILWAY COMPANY, Relator,

v.The Honorable Mark H. NEILL, Respondent.

No. SC 91706.

Supreme Court of Missouri, En Banc.

Dec. 20, 2011.Rehearing Denied Jan. 31, 2012.

William A. Brasher, Thomas P. McDermott and Cynthia A. Masterson, Boyle Brasher LLC, St. Louis, for Railway.

Leonard P. Cervantes, Phillip A. Cervantes and Jennifer L. Suttmoeller, Cervantes & Associates, St. Louis, for Michael Patton.

LAURA DENVIR STITH, Judge.

The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company (“BNSF”) petitions this Court to issue its writ of mandamus ordering the trial court to lift its protective order preventing discovery of the medical records of Dr. Shankararao Rao, a psychiatrist who treated and prescribed medication to the plaintiff in the underlying personal injury lawsuit, and directing the trial court to order that the records be produced and that Dr. Rao's records custodian be made available for deposition.

This Court holds that the trial court abused its discretion in holding that discovery of the records of a treating psychiatrist is precluded entirely where, as here, the plaintiff alleges only physical rather than psychological injury. Rule 56.01 provides that discovery may be had of matters reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence on all issues, not just on damages. This Court reaffirms that psychiatric records are not discoverable in the usual case in which the plaintiff does not claim psychiatric injury. But here, BNSF's defense is that the cause of the plaintiff's physical injuries was his use, abuse and abrupt cessation of use of medications prescribed by Dr. Rao and other psychiatrists around the time of the injuries. On these facts, BNSF has shown that it has reason to believe that discovery of treatment records held by Dr. Rao reasonably is calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence on its theory of causation.

The concerns the trial court states in its order that such discovery must be denied entirely because it could be used to introduce psychiatric testimony by “the back door” can be addressed adequately by entry of an appropriate protective order such as, inter alia, requiring en camera review of Dr. Rao's records for relevancy or limiting their use to the issue of causation or such other issue, if any, as to which the trial court finds they are relevant and admissible.

For these reasons, this Court makes permanent its preliminary writ.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In 2004, Michael Patton filed a two-count personal injury action under the Federal Employers' Liability Act (“FELA”), 45 U.S.C. § 51 et seq., against his employer, BNSF. In count I, Mr. Patton alleges that, in August 2001, BNSF negligently required him to perform heavy manual labor in extreme heat and, as a result, he lost consciousness and fell, striking his head, neck and left shoulder. Mr. Patton further alleges that striking his head caused him to suffer subsequent “reoccurring seizures and/or fainting spells.”

In count II, Mr. Patton alleges that, in October 2002, BNSF negligently failed to provide a reasonably safe workplace when it permitted several BNSF employees, while acting within the scope of their employment, to fill Mr. Patton's vehicle with garbage as a prank. Mr. Patton asserts that when he discovered his vehicle filled with trash, he became so agitated that he lost consciousness and fell to the ground. Mr. Patton claims that this fall re-injured his head and neck, lacerated his eye, and “caused [him] to suffer reoccurring seizures and/or fainting spells.”

BNSF disputes that its negligence caused Mr. Patton's losses of consciousness or seizures and any resulting injuries. Instead, BNSF argues, Mr. Patton's reoccurring losses of consciousness, seizures and related problems resulted from his abuse of, or withdrawal from, prescription medications. BNSF supports this theory with information contained in Mr. Patton's medical records, obtained through the discovery process in this and an unrelated prior case in which Mr. Patton alleged, among other things, that he had developed seizures caused by lead exposure. Those records show that, shortly before the first BNSF incident in August 2001, a psychiatrist named Dr. Stephen Stromsdorfer and another physician named Dr. Harry Katz, unbeknownst to one another, both were prescribing various controlled substances to Mr. Patton, including Valium and Xanax. When they learned of each other's prescriptions in July 2001 Dr. Katz abruptly ceased writing prescriptions for Mr. Patton. At the same time, Dr. Stromsdorfer was reducing Mr. Patton's medications. BNSF argues that this sudden decrease in medications set the stage for Mr. Patton's loss of consciousness in August 2001 as at least one of the drugs suddenly available to him only in lesser quantities has anticonvulsive properties.

To further bolster its defense that Mr. Patton's injuries were caused by prescription drug abuse rather than excessive heat or other unsafe conditions, in February 2011 BNSF sought discovery of records held by Dr. Rao. Through an earlier discovery request, BNSF learned that, after Drs. Stromsdorfer and Katz either lowered their prescriptions to Mr. Patton or altogether ceased making them, Mr. Patton had made dozens of visits to emergency rooms seeking greater quantities of those medications. Later, Dr. Rao began treating Mr. Patton for depression and anxiety, and his prescription records show he was prescribing medicine to him for these conditions before, during and after the October 2002 incident in which Mr. Patton again lost consciousness.

BNSF contends that Dr. Rao's records are reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence relevant to the “nature and cause of [Mr. Patton's] condition and the cause of his fainting and/or seizures.” Accordingly, BNSF subpoenaed from Dr. Rao's office “any and all medical records, reports, & other medical documents & billing ... which relate to treatment rendered to Michael T. Patton.”

In response, Mr. Patton filed a motion to quash the subpoena and requested a protective order for records held by Dr. Rao. In denying the discovery and granting Mr. Patton's requested protective order, the trial court explained that the request to review Dr. Rao's records for evidence relevant to causation “strikes the court as an attempt to obtain through the back door psychiatric records that Defendant was denied at the front door.” It therefore barred the discovery altogether, stating that the railroad “has already obtained all of [Mr. Patton's] medical records related to the injuries alleged in the petition, which are physical, not psychiatric. [Mr. Patton's] psychiatric records held by Dr. Rao are not relevant to those injuries and are not discoverable.”

In April 2011, BNSF petitioned this Court to issue a writ of mandamus: (1) ordering the trial court to deny Mr. Patton's motion for protective order; (2) permitting BNSF to depose the custodian of records for Dr. Rao; and (3) ordering Mr. Patton to produce the records of Dr. Rao. On May 31, 2011, this Court issued a preliminary writ. That writ is now made permanent.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

This Court has the authority to “issue and determine original remedial writs.” Mo. Const. art. V, § 4.1. “A litigant [seeking] relief by mandamus must allege and prove that he has a clear, unequivocal specific right to a thing claimed.” Furlong Cos., Inc. v. City of Kansas City, 189 S.W.3d 157, 166 (Mo. banc 2006). “Trial courts have broad discretion in administering rules of discovery, which this Court will not disturb absent an abuse of discretion.” State ex rel. Delmar Gardens N. Operating, LLC v. Gaertner, 239 S.W.3d 608, 610 (Mo. banc 2007). Mandamus is proper, however, when a court abuses its discretion in denying “discovery because a trial court has no discretion to deny discovery of matters [that] are relevant to [a] lawsuit and are reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence when the matters are neither work product nor privileged.” State ex rel. Rowland v. O'Toole, 884 S.W.2d 100, 102 (Mo.App.1994).

III. THE TRIAL COURT ABUSED ITS DISCRETION IN FAILING TO CONSIDER THE RELEVANCE OF THE REQUESTED MATERIAL TO THE ISSUE OF CAUSATION

Missouri's discovery rules allow parties to “obtain discovery regarding any matter, not privileged, that is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action, whether it relates to the claim or defense of the party seeking discovery or to the claim or defense of any other party.” Rule 56.01(b)(1). “It is not grounds for objection that the information may be inadmissible at trial, but it is sufficient if the information sought appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” State ex rel. Plank v. Koehr, 831 S.W.2d 926, 927 (Mo. banc 1992); see also Rule 56.01(b)(1).

As noted, Mr. Patton filed his claim pursuant to the FELA. To sustain a claim under the FELA, a plaintiff must prove that: “(1) he was injured in the scope of his employment; (2) his employment was in furtherance of [the railroad's] business; (3) [the railroad] was negligent; and (4) [the railroad's] negligence played some part in causing his injury.” Palmer v. Union Pac. R.R. Co., 311 S.W.3d 843, 851 (Mo.App.2010) (emphasis added). In other words, Mr. Patton is required to prove not just damages, but also that BNSF's negligence caused his injuries.

A. The Trial Court Mistakenly Focused Solely on the Damages Claimed

BNSF sought discovery of records held by Dr. Rao about his treatment of Mr. Patton. In response, Mr. Patton sought a protective order alleging that psychiatric records are not relevant because he claims only physical injuries. After granting the protective order, the court noted, in ruling on BNSF's motion for a rehearing, that the issues had become limited to whether psychiatric records can be discovered when only physical injuries are alleged,...