Opinion ID: 1760683
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Kentucky Law Applies to Determine the Admissibility of the Allegedly Privileged Communications.

Text: In ordering Saleba to comply with Fiser's discovery requests, the trial court in this instance held that because there are significant contacts to warrant the application of Kentucky law and because Kentucky has made the policy decision that such [peer review] records should be discoverable in medical malpractice cases, Kentucky law, and not Ohio law, should apply. On appeal to this Court, Saleba argues that the trial court erred because in Kentucky, the appropriate conflict of laws test is not whether there are any sufficient contacts with the forum state, but rather, which state has the most significant contacts with the communication, an approach Saleba represents is set forth in the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws (1971). Although Riser argues that Kentucky has only applied the Restatement approach in contract disputes, Saleba contends that Kentucky has never limited the most significant relationship test articulated in the Restatement to contract disputes and that it should be applicable to decide the conflict of laws issue in this case. First and foremost, Kentucky has consistently applied § 188 of the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws to resolve choice of law issues that arise in contract disputes. Section 188(1) of the Restatement, which is found in Chapter Eight, entitled Contracts, and in Topic One, entitled Validity of Contracts and Rights Created Thereby, states in its entirety: The rights and duties of the parties with respect to an issue in contract are determined by the local law of the state which, with respect to that issue, has the most significant relationship to the transaction and the parties under the principles stated in § 6. Restatement (Second) Conflict of Laws § 188(1) (1971) (emphasis added). Kentucky has ample case law explaining that the any significant contacts test applies to tort actions, whereas the Restatement's most significant contacts test applies to contract disputes. Foster v. Leggett, 484 S.W.2d 827, 829 (Ky.1972) (holding that in tort cases, significant contactsnot necessarily the most significant contacts permit the application of Kentucky law); Breeding v. Massachusetts Indemnity and Life Ins. Co., 633 S.W.2d 717, 719 (Ky.1982) (holding that in disputes involving the validity of a contract... [t]he modern test is which state has the most significant relationship to the transaction and the parties); Bonnlander v. Leader Nat. Ins. Co., 949 S.W.2d 618, 620 (Ky.App.1996) (explaining that in tort actions, any significant contact with Kentucky [i]s sufficient to allow Kentucky law to be applied, whereas in contract actions, the law of the state with the greatest interest in the outcome of the litigation should be applied); Brewster v. Colgate-Palmolive Co., 279 S.W.3d 142, 145, n. 8 (Ky.2009) (applying Kentucky law in an asbestos exposure case because of significant contacts with Kentucky even though the plaintiff was exposed when he worked at the defendant's Indiana plant). Although Kentucky case law indicates that different choice of law rules apply to tort actions versus contract disputes, these different tests are not significant here because the underlying dispute in this specific appeal is neither a tort nor a contract issue. Fiser's medical malpractice claim is most assuredly a tort action, but the more specific issue in this writ action is the discoverability of allegedly privileged communications. This Court recently engaged in a choice of law analysis involving privileged communications in Major v. Commonwealth, 275 S.W.3d 706, 714-715 (Ky. 2009). In Major, this Court applied § 139(2) from the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws (1971) [1] to resolve the issue of admissibility of a taped phone conversation between the defendant from his home in Massachusetts and his father from his home in Nova Scotia, Canada. Id. at 713. The conversation would have been privileged in Massachusetts but not in Kentucky, [2] where the defendant was being tried. Id. Although this Court ultimately held that the trial court did not err in admitting the phone call because of the law of the case doctrine, we explained that even without that doctrine, the trial court properly applied Kentucky law. Id. In reaching this conclusion, this Court relied on § 139(2) of the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws (1971), which states: Evidence that is privileged under the local law of the state which has the most significant relationship with the communication but which is not privileged under the local law of the forum will be admitted unless there is some special reason why the forum policy favoring admission should not be given effect. This Court explained that even if Massachusetts had the most significant relationship with the phone conversation, there still must be some special reason for Kentucky to forgo its acknowledged policy favoring admission of this type of taped phone conversation. Id. at 714. Concluding that no special reason existed to ignore Kentucky's policy favoring admission of the disputed communication, this Court held that the trial court properly applied Kentucky law and admitted the phone conversation. Id. at 713-16. Curiously, Saleba argues that this Court should apply § 139 of the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws to the case at hand, but contends that this approach requires weighing the significance of each state's interests. Although Saleba is correct that § 139 of the Restatement initially instructs courts to determine which state has the most significant relationship with a communication, the rule goes on to explain that if the communication is not privileged under the local law of the forumin this case, Kentuckythe communication will be admitted unless there is some special reason why the forum policy favoring admission should not be given effect. Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 139(2) (1971). Applying this rule to the case at hand, we again conclude that there is no special reason to warrant ignoring Kentucky's policy of permitting peer review documents to be discoverable in medical malpractice suits. Although Soarda Kentucky resident who saw a Kentucky physician and who had no control over her lab results being sent by a Kentucky laboratory to an Ohio hospitalarguably has a significant interest in the peer review communications, Ohio does appear to have the more significant relationship with the peer review documents: an Ohio healthcare provider was the subject of the documents, and they were generated in Ohio by an Ohio hospital. However, as the Restatement explains, even if Ohio had the more significant relationship, a special reason must still exist before a Kentucky court will apply another state's law excluding evidence when Kentucky law plainly favors admission. No such reason exists in this case. Moreover, due to Kentucky's longstanding precedent deeming peer review documents to be discoverable in medical malpractice actions, the trial court was clearly justified in applying Kentucky law. Because the trial court did not act erroneously in applying Kentucky law or in requiring Saleba to comply with Fiser's discovery requests, the Court of Appeals did not abuse its discretion in denying Saleba's petition.