Opinion ID: 1060738
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Tennessee Peer Review Law of 1967

Text: We begin our analysis of the question of whether hospitals were included in those parties to whom qualified immunity from liability was extended by examining the language of the Peer Review Law. The Tennessee Peer Review Law is codified in Tenn.Code Ann. § 63-6-219. In enacting the Peer Review Law, the Legislature has clearly stated its intent and purposes: it is the stated policy of Tennessee to encourage committees made up of Tennessee's licensed physicians to candidly, conscientiously, and objectively evaluate and review their peers' professional conduct, competence, and ability to practice medicine.... As incentive for the medical profession to undertake professional review, ... peer review committees must be protected from liability for their good-faith efforts. To this end, peer review committees should be granted certain immunities relating to their actions undertaken as part of their responsibility to review, discipline, and educate the profession. Id. § -219(a)(1)-(2) (now codified at § -219(b)(1)-(2)). The Peer Review Law defines peer review committee as including a committee of any licensed health care institution. Id. § -219(b) (now codified at § -219(c)). In enumerating the parties entitled to qualified immunity under the Peer Review Law, the statute states that: ... institutions, foundations, entities and associated committees as identified in subsection (b), physicians, surgeons, registered nurses, hospital administrators and employees, members of boards of directors or trustees of any publicly supported or privately supported hospital or other such provider of health care, any person acting as a staff member of a medical review committee ... is immune from liability to any patient, individual or organization for furnishing information, data, reports or records to any such committee or for damages resulting from any decision, opinions, actions and proceedings rendered, entered or acted upon by such committees undertaken or performed within the scope or function of the duties of such committees, if made or taken in good faith and without malice and on the basis of facts reasonably known or reasonably believed to exist. Id. § -219(c)(1) (emphasis added) (now codified at § -219(d)(1)). Eyring argues the lower courts erred in applying the Peer Review Law to grant Parkwest qualified immunity from liability for damages because the plain language of the statute provides no explicit immunity to hospitals, and to so construe the statute would violate our duty to strictly construe statutes in derogation of the common law. Parkwest maintains that the Peer Review Law includes hospitals by including institutions and entities. After having carefully considered the arguments of both parties, the Peer Review Law, and its stated policy, we conclude that the only interpretation which give[s] effect to the intention or purpose of the legislature as expressed in the statute, e.g., Carson Creek Vacation Resorts, Inc. v. State Dep't of Revenue, 865 S.W.2d 1 (Tenn.1993), is to construe the term institutions as referring to hospitals. [4] We acknowledge that hospitals lack immunity under the common law. However, Eyring's argument overlooks the fact that at common law, a hospital can only act through its agents, incurring liability only through its agents' acts and omissions. The Peer Review Law clearly grants immunity to a specific class of the hospitals' agents, the peer review committees. [5] Moreover, the stated purpose of the Peer Review Law indicates that the legislature balanced the interests of physicians and the public so that, essentially, persons and entities involved in the peer review process are protected from monetary liability for their actions but are still subject to suit for declaratory and injunctive relief. A plaintiff physician should not be permitted to circumvent the stated policy supporting the Peer Review Law simply by naming the hospital as a separate defendant in a suit for money damages when physicians are entitled to vindicate their rights to procedure through suits for declaratory and injunctive relief. Accordingly, affording hospitals a qualified immunity from liability for damages better serves the legislature's purpose to provide an incentive for the medical profession to undertake professional review. Tenn.Code Ann. § 63-6-219(a)(2). For example, the legislature intended to encourage peer review committees to carry out their responsibility to ... discipline ... the profession. Id. (emphasis added). Peer review committees, however, can discipline only through the hospital's disciplinary structure. Our interpretation of the term institutions to include hospitals is in accord with a close reading of the statute in its entirety. Section -219(b) defines a peer review committee as including a committee of any licensed health care institution.  Id. (emphasis added). Section -219(c)(1) grants qualified immunity to institutions ... and associated committees as identified in subsection (b). Id. Clearly, the phrase licensed health care institution in subsection (b) corresponds to the term institutions in subsection (c). Like the Court of Appeals, we observe that clearer language could have been employed, but we cannot escape the conclusion that the words licensed health care institution, and institutions refer to hospitals, which must be licensed by the State. [6] Tenn.Code Ann. § 68-11-204 (1996 & Supp.1998).