Opinion ID: 1793567
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Specific Language of the Statute

Text: The proper interpretation of the provider data exception to the privilege provision of the review organizations statute is at issue in this case. More specifically, we are asked to interpret the phrase requesting or seeking through discovery in the first sentence and the phrase in such proceedings in the second sentence of the exception. The physicians contend that the district court erred in its interpretation of the statute. They argue that, because the terms requesting and seeking through discovery are separated by the disjunctive word or, they refer to two different means by which the physicians are entitled to gain access to the information they endeavor to obtain. The physicians further argue that if the statute is construed to mean that requesting and seeking each modify the term through discovery, the word requesting would be rendered superfluous. The hospital argues that the word or should be read as a conjunctive connecting two synonymous words and that, therefore, the words requesting and seeking should be read as both modifying the term through discovery. Thus, the hospital argues that the provider data exception should be read as granting the physicians access to the information they endeavor to obtain only when they request the information through discovery or seek the information through discovery. The hospital further contends that the phrase in such proceedings in the second sentence of the provider data exception clarifies that the legislature intended that more than a mere request is required to obtain review organization information. Accordingly, the hospital maintains that because review organization information may only be disclosed in the discovery process, the exception must be read to mean that the physicians may request or seek the information through discovery only after the hospital has made an adverse ruling concerning their staff privileges or participation status. Absent context revealing that the word or should be read as a conjunctive, we have generally read or to be disjunctive. See, e.g., Berry v. Walker Roofing Co., 473 N.W.2d 312, 314-15 (Minn.1991); Aberle v. Faribault Fire Dept. Relief Ass'n, 230 Minn. 353, 360, 41 N.W.2d 813, 817 (1950). Reading only the first sentence of the provider data exception, it appears that the word or should be read in its general senseas a disjunctive term. However, while the first sentence standing alone seems fairly clear, when read in the context of the rest of the provider data exception, the intended meaning of or becomes more elusive. Particularly troublesome is the phrase in the second sentence of the provider data exception referring to data disclosed in such proceedings. This phrase can reasonably be read as implying that the legislature intended that something more than a mere request for information should be required in order to prompt disclosure. However, it could also be argued that the proceedings referred to are the proceedings of the review organization. Ascertaining how the word proceedings is used elsewhere in the statute provides little assistance to our inquiry. The word proceedings is used in the privilege provision, referring to the proceedings of a review organization, but later, in the provider data exception, it is used to refer to judicial proceedings. The American Heritage Dictionary supports either reading, defining the noun proceeding as a course of action; a procedure and the noun proceedings as a sequence of events occurring at a particular place or occasion, a record of business carried on by a society or other organization, and the instituting or conducting of legal action. American Heritage Dictionary at 1444 (3d ed.1992). Thus, the intended antecedent for the phrase in such proceedings, like the meaning of the word or, is not entirely clear.