Case Name: LAWRENCE v. BAY OSTEOPATHIC HOSPITAL, INC
Court: Michigan Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Michigan
Decision Date: 1989-02-21
Citations: 175 Mich. App. 61
Docket Number: Docket No. 103178
Parties: LAWRENCE v BAY OSTEOPATHIC HOSPITAL, INC
Judges: Before: Michael J. Kelly, P.J., and Mackenzie and S. B. Miller, JJ.
Reporter: Michigan appeals reports; cases decided in the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Volume: 175
Pages: 61–76

Head Matter:
LAWRENCE v BAY OSTEOPATHIC HOSPITAL, INC
Docket No. 103178.
Submitted October 20, 1988, at Lansing.
Decided February 21, 1989.
Karl Harold Lawrence suffered a cardiac arrest during his admission to Bay Osteopathic Hospital in October of 1983. Mr. Lawrence also suffered brain damage when the hospital staff and others allegedly failed to adequately respond to the cardiac arrest. Evelyn Lawrence, individually and as guardian of Karl Lawrence, an incompetent person, and their nine children filed a medical malpractice action against Bay Osteopathic Hospital, Inc., and others in Bay Circuit Court. Mr. Lawrence died in 1987, and his estate was substituted as a plaintiff in his stead. During pretrial proceedings, two attorneys for the defendants met with Dr. Woolliscroft, one of Mr. Lawrence’s treating physicians at the University of Michigan Hospital where Mr. Lawrence had been transferred after his discharge from Bay Osteopathic Hospital. Plaintiffs intended to call Dr. Woolliscroft as an expert witness, and the meeting between the defense attorneys and Dr. Woolliscroft was without the permission of plaintiffs’ counsel. At the time of that meeting, the defense attorneys had not been informed that Dr. Woolliscroft was to be an expert witness for plaintiffs. At a subsequent deposition, Dr. Woolliscroft testified that the conference with the defense attorneys made no difference in his thoughts or opinions about the case and that the attorneys had not tried to improperly influence him in any way. Plaintiffs filed a motion for default judgment, invocation of sanctions, and for extension of time to name expert witnesses on the basis that the meeting between Dr. Woolliscroft and the defense attorneys constituted a willful and intentional breach of the attorney-client relationship and the doctor-patient relationship, was an invasion of plaintiffs’ attorney’s work product, and was unethical. The court, William J. Caprathe, J., found that the attorneys in question had _violated the physician-patient privilege and the attorney-client privilege and had improperly sought to obtain the work product of plaintiffs’ counsel. The court also imposed sanctions upon counsel and allowed plaintiffs additional time to name an expert witness. Defendants Dhana Shrestha, M.D., and Dhana Shrestha, M.D., P.C., appealed.
References
Am Jur 2d, Physicians, Surgeons, and Other Healers § 169.
See the Index to Annotations under Attorney or Assistance of Attorney; Physician-Patient Privilege.
The Court of Appeals held:
1. Ex parte interviews by defense counsel of a plaintiff’s treating physician without the plaintiff’s consent and the presence of plaintiffs counsel at any face-to-face meeting between defense counsel and plaintiffs treating physician are prohibited. The trial court did not err in concluding that defense counsel acted improperly in conducting an ex parte interview of Dr. Woolliscroft without plaintiffs consent.
2. The imposition of sanctions against defendants by the trial court was not warranted because the state of the law was changing at the time defendants contacted Dr. Woolliscroft.
Affirmed in part and reversed in part.
Mackenzie, J., agreed that sanctions should not have been imposed in this case but dissented from that portion of the majority’s opinion which finds that ex parte interviews by defense counsel with plaintiffs treating physician are prohibited in the absence of consent to the interview by plaintiffs counsel. She would find that the physician-patient privilege was waived in this case. She would also hold that the attorney-client privilege could not be violated by the interview between defendants’ attorneys and Dr. Woolliscroft and that the record does not support a finding that any work product of plaintiffs’ attorney was disclosed.
Physicians and Surgeons — Physician-Patient Privilege — Ex Parte Interviews.
Ex parte interviews by defense counsel of a plaintiffs treating physician without the plaintiffs consent and the presence of plaintiffs counsel at any face-to-face meeting between defense counsel and plaintiffs treating physician are prohibited.
Patterson, Gruber, Kennedy & Gill (by Brian M. Kennedy), for plaintiffs.
Smith & Brooker, P.C. (by Richard G. Smith and Jonathan C. Martin), for defendants.
Before: Michael J. Kelly, P.J., and Mackenzie and S. B. Miller, JJ.
Circuit judge, sitting on the Court of Appeals by assignment.

Opinion:
S. B. Miller, J.
Defendants Dhana Shrestha, M.D. and Dhana Shrestha, M.D., P.C., appeal as of right from an order and that portion of a judgment issued by Bay Circuit Judge William J. Caprathe imposing sanctions upon defendants Shrestha and Bay Osteopathic Hospital.
The issue on appeal is whether the trial court erred in determining that defense counsel acted improperly in conducting an ex parte interview of Dr. Woolliscroft, decedent's treating physician subsequent to defendants' alleged malpractice, without plaintiffs' consent and without the permission of plaintiffs' attorney.
The recent case of Jordan v Sinai Hospital of Detroit, Inc, 171 Mich App 328; 429 NW2d 891 (1988), examined the issue of ex parte interviews of treating physicians by opposing counsel. The parties in Jordan presented the same arguments advanced by the parties in the present case. We concur with the reasoning in Jordan and agree with its holding that ex parte interviews by defense counsel of a plaintiff's treating physician without the plaintiff's consent and the presence of plaintiff's counsel at any face-to-face meeting between defense counsel and plaintiff's treating physician are prohibited.
We hold that the trial court in the instant case did not err in concluding that defense counsel acted improperly in conducting an ex parte interview of Dr. Woolliscroft without plaintiffs' consent. However, we believe that the imposition of sanctions against defendants by the trial court was not warranted in this case.
At the time defendants contacted Dr. Woollis croft, the state of the law was changing. Case law suggested that defense counsel's ex parte interview of a plaintiffs treating physician was not necessarily inappropriate. See, e.g., Melynchenko v Clay, 152 Mich App 193; 393 NW2d 589 (1986), lv den 426 Mich 875 (1986). This Court in Jordan noted that the issue was one of first impression since the enactment of the new Michigan Court Rules. Therefore, we reverse the trial court's order as to the imposition of sanctions against defendants Shrestha and Bay Osteopathic Hospital.
Affirmed in part and reversed in part.
Michael J. Kelly, P.J., concurred.