Opinion ID: 2543380
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: The Statute-conferred Qualified Reporting Privilege Invoked By Dr. Lashley

Text: ¶ 13 The statute-conferred privilege [23] is not aimed at shielding the professional from any one identified theory of liability. Rather, it is the harm that may flow from the reporting which is made irredressable. [24] The act of reporting and the consequences of a licensed clinical psychologist's lawful compliance with the reporting statute lie at the very base of the privilege conferred. When reporting constitutes the instrument through which the damage is inflicted, as it clearly does in this case, [25] it matters not what type of harm flows from reporting or what common-law theory is invoked by those who seek recovery. The broad statutory privilege extends across all cognizable theories of liability. It protects every professional in Dr. Lashley's class from any effort by those who seek to recover for harm occasioned by or through the act of reporting. In short, the act itself as well as all the consequences of compelled reporting stand shielded by the law's privilege. [26] Whenever post-reporting harm is the object of one's recovery  and it cannot be connected to a professional's bad-faith reporting of abuse  it falls both explicitly and implicitly within the ambit of the law's conferred privilege. ¶ 14 Because this lawsuit does not seek vindication for injury to the children, but rather for that harm to Myers [27] which clearly flowed as a direct consequence of the compelled reporting, Myers' claim in contest must be regarded as one for detriment from good-faith reporting by a licensed clinical psychologist. [28] The statutory reporting privilege is broad enough to protect Dr. Lashley from liability upon all theories of recovery for reporting-occasioned harm from submission to the authorities of a child abuse report. [29] ¶ 15 The qualifiedly concurring justice perceives the court's characterization of the action as flawed. [30] Stripped of all excess verbiage and reduced to articulate simplicity, Myers, without a doubt, seek recovery  in behalf of themselves as nonpatients  for harm sustained from Dr. Lashley's professional negligence in allegedly using substandard evaluative techniques for discovery of her underage patients' improper intra-familial carnal intimacy and then submitting to the authorities a statutorily-required report, naming Myers as revealed participants in impermissible physical contacts with these minors. Myers, who allege harm to themselves alone, [31] press solely for damages occasioned, directly or obliquely, by Dr. Lashley's child-abuse report. [32] In short, the gravamen of the tort in contest is the reporting. Had the reporting statute not commanded Dr. Lashley to submit the information, the entire child-abuse scenario would likely have remained a private matter protected by the psychotherapist/patient relationship. [33] It was the report that lifted the silence imposed by that privilege and transformed a purely private document into public knowledge. ¶ 16 Whether Myers' claim is malpractice proper is of no moment to today's analysis. [34] The critical dispositive issue is whether assumed redressability of the claim is defeated by unpierced statutory privilege. Because unpierced privilege is here the insurmountable barrier to Dr. Lashley's liability, it is unnecessary for us to test the malpractice theory of actionability by nonpatients. It does not matter if Myers may, in abstracto, sue as a nonpatient; they cannot prevail without first piercing (avoiding or overcoming) Dr. Lashley's privilege. [35] ¶ 17 The qualifiedly concurring justice invites the court to expand appellate inquiry beyond the issues the case tenders. [36] We must decline the invitation, mindful as we are of the time-honored principle that courts cannot extend their pronouncements beyond the strict framework of matters that must be resolved. [37] When issues decided extend beyond those that the case presents, a cloud of uncertainty is cast upon the excess of the appellate court's pronouncement. [38] If the court were to reach for decision the very issue which the qualifiedly concurring justice seeks to settle, its pronouncement on that issue, clearly unnecessary to the decision, would be an obiter dictum. [39]