Opinion ID: 1700466
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Vested Substantive Right

Text: The majority states at page 490: Importantly, the statutes in question do not actually create a statutory privilege. The statutes do not deem relevant materials confidential or privileged. This statement is in direct conflict with what this Court held in Cruger in dealing with these precise statutory sections where the Court said: We have previously held that [t]he discovery privilege . . . was clearly designed to provide that degree of confidentiality necessary for the full, frank medical peer evaluation which the legislature sought to encourage. Holly v. Auld, 450 So.2d at 220. Without the privilege, information necessary to the peer review process could not be obtained. Feldman v. Glucroft, 522 So.2d 798, 801 (Fla.1988). While we recognized in Holly that the discovery privilege would impinge upon the rights of litigants to obtain information helpful or even essential to their cases, we assumed that the legislature balanced that against the benefits offered by effective self-policing by the medical community. Holly, 450 So.2d at 220. We hold that the privilege provided by sections 766.101(5) and 395.011(9), Florida Statutes, protects any document considered by the committee or board as part of its decision-making process. The policy of encouraging full candor in peer review proceedings is advanced only if all documents considered by the committee or board during the peer review or credentialing process are protected. Committee members and those providing information to the committee must be able to operate without fear of reprisal. Similarly, it is essential that doctors seeking hospital privileges disclose all pertinent information to the committee. Physicians who fear that information provided in an application might someday be used against them by a third party will be reluctant to fully detail matters that the committee should consider. Accordingly, we find that a physician's application for staff privileges is a record of the committee or board for purposes of the statutory privilege. . . . . The policy behind the confidentiality privilege mandates this interpretation. See Byrd v. Richardson-Greenshields Sec., Inc., 552 So.2d 1099, 1102 (Fla. 1989) (a court's obligation is to honor the obvious legislative intent and policy behind an enactment, even where that intent requires an interpretation that exceeds the literal language of the statute). The privilege afforded to peer review committees is intended to prohibit the chilling effect of the potential public disclosure of statements made to or information prepared for and used by the committee in carrying out its peer review function. See Dworkin v. St. Francis Hosp., Inc., 517 A.2d 302, 307 (Del.Super.Ct.1986). This chilling effect is attributable to several factors. As one commentator has noted: [D]octors seem to be reluctant to engage in strict peer review due to a number of apprehensions: loss of referrals, respect, and friends, possible retaliations, vulnerability to torts, and fear of malpractice actions in which the records of the peer review proceedings might be used. It is this ambivalence that lawmakers seek to avert and eliminate by shielding peer review deliberations from legal attacks. Gregory G. Gosfield, Medical Peer Review Protection in the Health Care Industry, 52 Temp. L.Q. 552, 558 (1979) (footnote omitted). These fears are alleviated only by interpreting the statute as we do today. A different interpretation of this provision would completely eviscerate the protection the legislature sought to provide. Ultimately, all peer review committee records would be discoverable. What would not be discoverable in one action because of the nature of the lawsuit would be discoverable in another action. The confidential nature of the peer review proceedings would be obliterated. See Sanderson v. Frank S. Bryan, M.D., Ltd., 361 Pa.Super. 491, 522 A.2d 1138, 1141 (1987) (interpreting the confidentiality provision of Pennsylvania's Peer Review Protection Act), appeal denied, 517 Pa. 624, 538 A.2d 877 (1988). Cruger, 599 So.2d at 113-15. Thus, pursuant to this Court's express opinion in Cruger and as acknowledged in Brandon Regional Hospital, 957 So.2d at 594, the statutes in question do actually create a statutory privilege. [9] The majority here is plainly in error. Furthermore, it is not germane to what this Court held was the intent of this privilege that these statutes do not protect the information in federal court cases involving the application of federal causes of actions as in Feminist Women's Health Center, Inc. v. Mohammad, 586 F.2d 530, 545 n. 9 (5th Cir.1978), or Adkins v. Christie, 488 F.3d 1324, 1330 (11th Cir. 2007), or in disciplinary actions pursuant to section 458.337(1)(a)-(b), Florida Statutes. [10] Again, in Cruger, this Court specifically recognized that the purpose of the privilege was to protect against vulnerability to tort claims and fear of malpractice actions, which are civil actions expressly referred to in the statutes. We reiterated and enforced this holding in Brandon Regional Hospital, 957 So.2d at 594. As noted earlier, the majority and the First District concluded the hospitals had no vested right in the statutory privilege upon which they relied and that in order to be vested, a right must be more than a mere expectation based on an anticipation of the continuance of an existing law. Majority op. at 490 (quoting Div. of Workers' Comp. v. Brevda, 420 So.2d 887, 891 (Fla. 1st DCA 1982)). According to the majority, when a statutory privilege is repealed, then all communication made during the period when the privilege did exist are unclothed of their privilege. However, the majority provides no authority from Florida courts for this extraordinary and troubling holding. The cases to which the majority cites, Campus Communications, Inc. v. Earnhardt, 821 So.2d 388, 395 (Fla. 5th DCA 2002); Baker County Press, Inc. v. Baker County Medical Services, Inc., 870 So.2d 189, 193 (Fla. 1st DCA 2004); News-Press Publishing Co. v. Kaune, 511 So.2d 1023, 1026 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987), are inapposite. These cases involve situations in which the exemption from disclosure of records was enacted after the creation of the record. The records were not required to be disclosed. The legislative enactments were expressly remedial. There was no reliance upon the record not being disclosed as there is when records are created and information conveyed in reliance upon a privilege against their use. See, e.g., Salt Lake Child & Family Therapy Clinic, Inc. v. Frederick, 890 P.2d 1017 (Utah 1995) (holding that a new statute which modified a mental health therapist privilege could not be applied retroactively and that the relevant time period was when the privileged communications took place, not the time period when the interested person is seeking to gain access to the privileged information). [11] It is particularly troubling because the majority's decision in respect to this statutory privilege puts all communications made in reliance upon other privileges at risk, [12] making the privilege guarding the conversations contingent upon the continuing existence of the statutory privilege. Numerous privileges are creatures of statute. [13] These privileges have historically been honored because the privileges promote candor necessary and beneficial to the relationships which gave rise to the communication. Privileged communications will have a whole new character now that the communications are exposed to future disclosure. The straightforward fact is that the State made a promise by statute that if health care providers were open and frank about problems in care and treatment, their openness and frankness would be protected from disclosure. Clearly, since this was a statutory right to confidentiality, it was subject to being changed prospectively. But those who complied with this statutory right clearly had an equal right to rely on the State's promise that records made while the confidentiality applied would remain confidential. Now, by this decision, the State's promise is broken. For the above reasons, I dissent from the majority's holding that the law should be applied retroactively. CANTERO and BELL, JJ., concur.