Case Name: In the Matter of Bakers Mutual Insurance Company of New York, Appellant. Department of Health of the City of New York, Respondent
Court: New York Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1950-04-13
Citations: 301 N.Y. 21
Docket Number: 
Parties: In the Matter of Bakers Mutual Insurance Company of New York, Appellant. Department of Health of the City of New York, Respondent.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Reports
Volume: 301
Pages: 21–34

Head Matter:
In the Matter of Bakers Mutual Insurance Company of New York, Appellant. Department of Health of the City of New York, Respondent.
Argued January 5, 1950;
decided April 13, 1950.
Samuel Schub and Milton B. Pfeffer for appellant.
I. The State Workmen’s Compensation Law, and the public policy expressed therein, are paramount to this municipal regulation. (Matter of McGrinder v. Sullivan, 290 N. Y. 11; Matter of Altschuller v. Bressler, 289 N. Y. 463; Matter of Kress & Co. v. Department of Health, 283 N. Y. 55; Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Soc. v. Town of Woodbury, 230 App. Div. 228, 256 N. Y. 619; Thomas v. Morris, 286 N. Y. 266; Munzer v. State of New York, 41 N. Y. S. 2d 98; Matter of Maryland Cas. Co. [City of New York], 274 App. Div. 211; Duffy v. 42nd St. M. & St. N. Ave. Ry Co., 266 App. Div. 865; Hunter v. Derby Foods, 110 F. 2d 970.) II. Substantial justice requires the production of the medical records. (Steinberg v. New York Life Ins. Co., 263 N. Y. 45; Matter of Maryland Cas. Co. [City of New York], 274 App. Div. 211.) III. Because the City of New York is also an employer subject to the Workmen’s Compensation Law, the claimed privilege would result in an unconstitutional, unequal protection of the laws. (N. Y. Const., art. I, § 11; U. S. Const., 14th Amendt., § 1.) IV. To promote healthy and sound working conditions throughout the State, the Workmen’s Compensation Law confers upon the board the right to secure accurate information, data and statistics. It is a right which may not be abridged by the city’s Sanitary Code. (Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 148, subd. 2.)
John P. McGrath, Corporation Counsel (Fred Iscol, Seymour B. Quel and Frank A. Piazza of counsel), for respondent.
The application was properly denied since by express provision of the Sanitary Code the medical report is confidential and not subject to subpoena. The provision is valid and is applicable to workmen’s compensation proceedings. (Bandel v. City of New York, 69 Misc. 93, 144 App. Div. 938, 204 N. Y. 683; Matter of Stracquadanio v. Department of Health, 285 N. Y. 93; Matter of Maryland Cas. Co. [City of New York], 274 App. Div. 211; Thomas v. Morris, 286 N. Y. 266; McGowan v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 234 App. Div. 366, 259 N. Y. 454; Cushman v. Brundrett, 50 N. Y. 296; Mills v. Hildreth, 81 N. Y. 91; People ex rel. McGuiness v. McAneny, 211 N. Y. 535; Buffalo Loan Trust & Safe Deposit Co. v. Knights Templar & Masonic Mut. Aid Assn., 126 N. Y. 450.)

Opinion:
Loughran, Ch. J.
At a hearing held by a referee of the Workmen's Compensation Board upon a claim for death benefits, the widow of a deceased employee named Isaac Trepper introduced medical testimony as to the cause of, his death and its connection with his employment. The employer's carrier thereupon served upon the health department of the city of New York a subpœna duces tecum commanding that department and its registrar to produce before the referee the " original confidential certificate of death filed with the Department of Health of one Isaac Trepper who died on March 2, 1947, at 2940 West 29th Street, Brooklyn, New York."
On the return day of that process, a representative of the city health department appeared before the referee and refused to produce the demanded document on the ground that it was a communication that had been made confidential by the Sanitary Code of the city. The employer's carrier then applied under section 406 of the Civil Practice Act for a warrant to compel production of the document before the Workmen's Compensation Board. Special Term denied that application. The Appellate Division affirmed. We gave the carrier leave to bring the case here.
With exceptions not now material, section 33 of the Sanitary Code of the city requires a " certificate of death " and a separate " confidential medical report " of the cause of death to be filed (1) by any of a number of specified members of the staff of a hospital, or similar institution located within the city when in such an institution a death occurs from natural causes, and (2) by the attending physician when elsewhere in the city there occurs a death of that kind. (Subds. [a], [b].) Such " confidential medical report ", section 33 says, " shall be deemed not a part of such certificate " of death, but on the contrary, " shall be regarded and treated as a confidential and privileged communication, and shall not be subject to subpoena or open to inspection for any reason whatsoever, other than for scientific purposes approved by the [city] Board of Health." (Subd. [c].)
The certificate of the death of Isaac Trepper was filed with the city department of health by a physician in private practice. He set forth therein the following items: (1) the place of death was 2940 West 29th Street, Brooklyn, which was not a hospital or institution; (2) the length of Trepper's residence there was twenty-two years; (3) the time of death was March 2, 1947, at 9:30 a.m. ; (4) Trepper was a white man sixty-two years old who had been under medical care since December, 1946. These particulars were followed by an entry in this form: " I further certify that death was not caused, directly or indirectly by accident, homicide, suicide, acute or chronic poisoning, or in any suspicious or unusual manner, and that it was due to natural causes more fully described in the confidential medical report filed with the [city] Department of Health. "
The text which we have quoted from section 33 of the Sanitary Code of the city is incontestably clear. Manifestly that section was meant to be a bar to any juridical evidentiary use of a " confidential medical report " filed in accordance with its requirements. Consequently the city department of health was right in its refusal to produce the confidential medical report of Trep per's death — unless indeed so much of section 33 of the Sanitary Code as gave privacy to that report is in itself without validity.
Section 33, as it now reads, was adopted by the board of health of the city department of health on December 12, 1938, pursuant to the municipal charter which (in accordance with a State statute) was adopted by the electorate of the city at the general election of 1937 and took effect January 1, 1938 (see Matter of Broderick v. City of New York, 295 N. Y. 363). By section 558 of that charter the city board of health is authorized (1) to add to and to alter, amend or repeal any part of the Sanitary Code; (2) to publish therein additional provisions for the security of life and health in the city; and (3) to confer additional powers on the city department of health not inconsistent with the Constitution or laws of this State or with the city charter.
The State Workmen's Compensation Law says: " A subpoena or a subpoena duces tecum maybe signed and issued by the chairman, a member of the [workmen's compensation] board, referee or such other officer as may be designated by the chairman. A subpoena or a subpoena duces tecum may also be signed and issued by any attorney and counsellor-at-law appearing before the board on behalf of a claimant or other party. Failure to obey such subpoena shall constitute a contempt as provided by the civil practice act." (Workmen's Compensation Law, § 119.) These provisions of the State Workmen's Compensation Law are read by the carrier (the appellant here) as a contradiction of section 33 of the city Sanitary Code — a construction which necessarily would bring section 33 under the condemnation of the provisions of section 558 of the Charter of the City of New York which, as we have said, forbid a grant to the city health department of any power inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the State. We cannot adopt that conception of the sense of section 33 in the face of a number of sections of the Public Health Law of the State to which we now pass.
The State has a sanitary code of its own in respect of which the Legislature has made this declaration: " No provision of the [State] sanitary code shall relate to the city of New York or any portion thereof, and every provision of the [State] sanitary code shall apply to and be effective in all portions of the state except the city of New York unless stated otherwise " (Public Health Law, § 2-b). The State Commissioner of Health may not supervise the work of the health authorities in the city of New York (Public Health Law, § 4). The powers and duties of local boards of health are regulated by article 3 of the State Public Health Law; but (as that same article says) thirty-eight of the forty sections thereof " shall not be construed to affect, alter or repeal laws now in force relating to the board of health of the city of New York nor the sanitary code duly adopted and now in force in such city " (Public Health Law, § 38). Article 20 of the State Public Health Law, which makes provisions for the registration of births and deaths says: " Nothing in this article shall be construed to affect, alter, or repeal laws now in force applying to the city of New York " (Public Health Law, § 394).
The intent of the Legislature in providing for such a statutory scheme seems to us to have been simply this: The Sanitary Code of the City of New York is to have within that city the force and effect of State law while elsewhere in the State the Sanitary Code and Public Health Law of the State are to be supreme (cf. People v. Blanchard, 288 N. Y. 145).
Whether the State Public Health Law may be applicable within the city of New York to situations not provided for by the Sanitary Code of that city is a question that is not here presented.
The right to resort to means competent to compel the production of written as well as oral testimony has long been regarded as not less than essential to the very existence and constitution of a court at common law. But persons subpoenaed may nevertheless assert against the compulsion of such process whatever privileges they may enjoy under the common law or by statute (see American Lithographic Co. v. Werckmeister, 221 U. S. 603; 8 Wigmore on Evidence [3d. ed.], § 2191, pp. 62-63). Section 33 of the Sanitary Code of the City of New York gave privacy to the confidential medical report here in question as a means of equipping public officials for the discharge of functions committed to them for the public good. Whether the reasons in favor of such a privilege outbalance the reasons that may be urged against it was here a legislative question which, since it has been settled by the authorities having jurisdiction, cannot be reagitated in the courts. All in all, then, section 33 of the Sanitary Code of the City of New York is quite consistent with section 119 of the State Workmen's Compensation Law and does not conflict with the provisions of subdivision b of section 558 of the charter of the city, to which we have referred (cf. Thomas v. Morris, 286 N. Y. 266, 269-270).
As appellant here, the carrier also complains of a so-called " favored and exceptional position " which the City of NewYork is said to hold as an employer of labor by reason of an asserted " unrestricted access which it has to the files of its own Department of Health ". On that basis, section 33 of the City Sanitary Code is said to produce " an unconstitutional, unequal protection of the laws." The answer is plain. Section 33, we repeat, makes a " confidential medical report " open to inspection only " for scientific purposes approved by the Board of Health."
Section 33 of the Sanitary Code of the City of New York was adopted, as we have said, in 1938. Since that time, however, the Legislature has twice declared that no provision of the State Sanitary Code shall relate to the City of New York or any portion thereof (see Public Health Law, § 2-b, as amd. by L. 1946, ch. 166, § 2, as amd. by L. 1947, ch. 293, § 1).. This tacit statutory sanction of the policy of section 33 of the Sanitary Code of the City of New York leaves no room for judicial consideration of any contrary policy (Messersmith v. American Fidelity Co., 232 N. Y. 161, 165).
The order should be affirmed, with costs.