Court Opinion

ID: 9844343
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:01:06.611614+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:32.973860
License: Public Domain

*347QUINN, Justice,
dissenting:
I dissent. The hospital records that Dr. Franco seeks to inspect and copy are the very same records considered by the peer review committee of Beth Israel Hospital in the course of an adjudicatory hearing resulting in suspension of Franco’s surgical privileges at the hospital. As such, these records are protected by the statutory privilege created by section 12-43.5-102(3)(e), 5 C.R.S. (1978), and, therefore, are not discoverable in Franco’s pending lawsuit against Beth Israel Hospital, its Surgical and Medical Executive Committees, and the committee members for intentional infliction of emotional distress, outrageous misconduct, and conspiracy to injure his personal and professional reputation.
The statutory design of Colorado’s peer review legislation is to permit peer review committees “to openly, honestly, and objectively study and review the conduct of practice” by a physician, § 12-43.5-101(1), 5 C.R.S. (1978), with the objectives of providing the public with effective health care service at the lowest reasonable cost, § 12-43.5-101(2), 5 C.R.S. (1978), and of protecting patients against the unauthorized, unqualified, and improper practice of medicine, § 12-43.5-102(1), 5 C.R.S. (1978). Section 12-43.5-102(3)(e) provides as follows:
“The records of a review committee shall not be subject to subpoena in any civil suit against the physician, but, at the request of the Colorado state board of medical examiners, the board shall be provided a summary of the findings, recommendations, and disposition of actions taken by a review committee. Said board may also request, and shall receive, a summary of the actions of the hospital board of trustees in regard to recommendations of a review committee. The records of a review committee or a hospital board may be subpoenaed and a suit brought by the physician seeking judicial review of any action of the review committee or a hospital board.”
In Franco v. District Court, 641 P.2d 922 (Colo.1982), after examining the structure and purpose of the statutory peer review process, we concluded that the statutory privilege was not confined to malpractice actions against the physician, but rather was intended to shield the committee records from subpoena or discovery in all civil litigation except a judicial review proceeding. This conclusion found support not only in the legislative choice of “judicial review as the primary means of redress for a physician against whom disciplinary action has been imposed in the peer review process,” Franco, 641 P.2d at 927, but also in the underlying purposes of the statutory review process itself. We there stated:
“Admittedly, the physician’s exercise of his statutory right to judicial review will result in the disclosure to him of testimony and other material presented during the peer review proceedings, as well as the review committee’s comments and recommendations. However, we do not believe these limited disclosures, which are conducive to procedural fairness, derogate from the legislature’s intent to shield such information from subpoena and discovery in litigation not involving judicial review of the disciplinary action.
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“Considering the significant public interest in effective health care at the lowest reasonable cost, the statutory peer review process, in our opinion, represents a legislative choice of medical staff candor at the expense of pretrial discovery in any lawsuit not involving a judicial review of the committee’s recommendations and resulting disciplinary action by the hospital’s governing board. Restricting the privilege only to malpractice actions against a physician, as advocated by the petitioner, would thwart the legislative declaration of purpose in section 12-43.5-101.” 641 P.2d at 928-29.
The critical question in this proceeding is whether the hospital records considered by Beth Israel Hospital’s peer review committee in an adjudicatory hearing resulting in discipline are “records of a review committee” within the intendment of section 12-*34843.5-102(3)(e).1 I conclude that they are. We observed in Franco that “[cjommittee records may include the testimony and written reports of witnesses, documents and other material presented to the committee, and the committee’s notes, memo-randa, minutes and other records relating to its investigatory and hearing functions.” 641 P.2d at 925 n. 3. The hospital records sought by Franco in his pending lawsuit consist of factual material presented to the committee in the course of the adjudicatory phase of the peer review process. These records no less than the testimony and written reports of witnesses are part and parcel of the evidentiary predicate underlying the committee’s disciplinary decision and, as such, should be immunized from disclosure in any civil action except a judicial review proceeding. A contrary rule, in my opinion, not only discourages resort to judicial review as the corrective for allegedly inappropriate disciplinary action, but, more important, undercuts the confidentiality essential to the committee’s open, honest, and objective study and review of the conduct of medical practitioners. Indeed, if Franco is entitled to inspect and copy the hospital records in this case, I am hard pressed to find any principled basis to deny a discovery request for the testimony of witnesses, written reports, or any other material presented to the committee at the adjudicatory hearing.
Moreover, in some instances the disclosure of hospital records will be tantamount to revealing the source of the complaint resulting in peer review discipline. Under section 12-43.5-102(3)(a), 5 C.R.S. (1978), a patient or a health care professional may initiate a complaint with a peer review committee for investigation into a physician’s competence. A physician who foregoes a judicial review of the disciplinary decision might well be able to trace the source of the complaint if the hospital records considered by the peer review committee are made available to him in a civil action such as the one present here. Disclosure of such information may result in the person initiating the investigation being joined as a party defendant, thereby discouraging the reporting of inappropriate medical practices and frustrating the legislative goal of establishing judicial review as the primary method to redress a disciplinary sanction.
I see no significance in the fact that the hospital records may have been those of Franco’s patients or that these records may have been available to him when he was previously attending them as their doctor. Once the peer review committee considered the hospital records in the adjudicatory, phase of the peer review process, they became the records of the committee, just as any other testimony presented to the committee, and were thus entitled to the full protection of the statutory privilege. Having elected to waive his statutory right to seek judicial review of the suspension order, Franco should be limited to developing his claims by evidence fully outside the scope of the peer review privilege.
I would make the rule absolute.
I am authorized to say that DUBOFSKY and NEIGHBORS, JJ., join in this dissenting opinion.

. It strikes me as ironic that the hospital records sought here by Franco were part of the discovery package he unsuccessfully attempted to obtain in the former proceeding in this court. We noted at that time that neither Franco nor any other party in interest raised any issue “as to whether the information sought by [Franco] is part of ‘the records of a review committee’ within the meaning of section 12 — 43.5—102(3)(e) _" Franco v. District Court, 641 P.2d 922, 925 n. 3. Franco claimed in the former proceeding that: (1) the peer review privilege was limited only to malpractice cases against a physician and was inapplicable to his pending claim for money damages and injunctive relief against Beth Israel Hospital, its peer review committees, and the committee members; (2) even if the statutory privilege was applicable to his pending lawsuit, the privilege should be limited to good faith action by committee members. Having lost on these issues, Franco now disavows what can only be viewed as a previous concession that the hospital records were part of the records of the review committee.