Opinion ID: 874082
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Waiver Argument

Text: Montalbano suggests that Idaho Code section 39-1392e(f) provides that when a physician is the subject of an investigation and brings suit against the health care organization regarding that investigation the confidentiality and privilege are waived simply by the making of such claim. Idaho Code section 39-1392e(f) provides: If any physician, emergency medical services personnel, patient, person, organization or entity whose conduct, care, chart, behavior, health or standards of ethics or professional practice is the subject of investigation, comment, testimony, . . . written or verbal utterance . . . or act of any such health care organization or any member or committee thereof in the course of research, study, disciplinary proceeding or investigation of the sort contemplated by this act, makes claim or brings suit on account of such health care organization activity, then, in the defense thereof, confidentiality and privilege shall be deemed waived by the making of such claim, and such health care organization and the members of their staffs and committees shall be allowed to use and resort to such otherwise protected information for the purpose of presenting proof of the facts surrounding such matter, and this provision shall apply . . . whether pressed by a patient, physician, emergency medical services personnel, or any other person. . . . (Emphasis added). As stated above, this Court must give all the words used in a statute their plain, usual, and ordinary meaning, construing the statute as a whole. City of Huetter, 150 Idaho at 15, 244 P.3d at 159. Giving effect to all of the express terms in Idaho Code subsection 39-1392e(f), it applies in defense of a claim brought by a physician and it permits such health care organization and the members of their staffs and committees to use the otherwise privileged information for the purpose of presenting proof of the facts surrounding such matter. The statute cannot be reasonably construed to state that if a physician brings a lawsuit, the privilege is waived in order to permit the physician to use otherwise privileged records. The statute states that the privilege shall be deemed waived by the making of such claim. A waiver is the intentional relinquishment of a known right. It is a voluntary act and implies election by a party to dispense with something of value or to forego some right or advantage which he might at his option have demanded and insisted upon. Crouch v. Bischoff, 78 Idaho 364, 368, 304 P.2d 646, 649 (1956). When it is a physician who is making the claim, it is the physician who waives his or her right to assert the privilege. The physician cannot waive the right of the hospital or anyone else who is entitled to assert it. Further, SARMC argues that Montalbano's interpretation of subsection 1392e(f), when applied to the whole subsection, would provide a sweeping waiver of the confidentiality and privilege of peer review information in nearly every circumstance involving peer review activity at a hospital because subsection 1392e(f) is not limited to only when a physician brings suit or is the subject of physician conduct. We agree. In order for subsection 1392e(f) to waive the protection of peer review information regarding Montalbano, SARMC must choose to disclose that information as part of its defense before Montalbano is allowed to access and use such information himself.