Court Opinion

ID: 9781416
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 16:36:58.787224+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:26.272022
License: Public Domain

FEW, C.J.,
concurring.
I concur in the majority’s reasoning and conclusion that the QAC file meets the criteria for confidentiality under the peer-review privilege found in sections 40-71-10 and -20. That question is resolved, and no further inquiry into the QAC file’s confidentiality under these sections is necessary.
However, this third appeal brings before our court for the first time a document contained in the QAC file, item 15. Item 15 is a series of notes made by the Hospital risk manager from interviews with Nurse Jennifer Emerick and others, including the statements that Nurse Emerick was afraid of Prince and thought he was at risk for elopement.7 *612While the document on which the statements are recorded is protected from disclosure under the peer-review privilege, the statements themselves are not. McGee v. Bruce Hosp. Sys., 312 S.C. 58, 62, 439 S.E.2d 257, 260 (1993) (holding peer-review “statute does not protect information if obtained from alternative sources”).
I have substantial concerns about what should be done with this newly discovered evidence. The statements, which were revealed to the trial court only after remand from Prince’s appeal, served as the basis for the trial court’s June 22, 2006 order that the peer-review privilege had been waived. However, the order did not contain the content of item 15.8 The record on the appeal from that order also did not contain the content of item 15. Therefore, this court did not know what the trial court knew when we reversed the finding of waiver and remanded again for the trial court to examine the validity of the peer-review privilege. The trial court’s December 1, 2008 order, however, does reveal the content of item 15. The order demonstrates that the reason the trial court exceeded the mandate from this court was the trial court’s concern over how to handle the troubling revelation of item 15. Because I share the trial court’s concern, I write separately to address it.
The central issue in this case is whether Hospital knew or reasonably should have known that Prince posed a danger to himself, and in particular whether Hospital was on notice of any reasonable likelihood of elopement. Nurse Emerick’s statements recorded in item 15 relate directly to that central issue. In pretrial discovery, Prince served Hospital with an interrogatory almost identical to the standard interrogatory set forth in Rule 33(b)(7), SCRCP. In response to the interrogatory, Hospital gave a detailed account of Nurse Emerick’s involvement with and her observations of Prince. The interrogatory answer does not mention Nurse Emerick being afraid of Prince nor any thought that he was at risk for elopement.9 Prince later took Nurse Emerick’s deposition, *613which was published at trial, in which counsel asked her a series of questions about her observations of Prince and what concerns she had for his safety in the hours leading up to his fall. The questions repeatedly put Nurse Emerick to the task of explaining what she observed and what conclusions she reached in relation to the risk that Prince might harm himself by leaving the hospital room without authorization. In response to these questions, Nurse Emerick did not disclose that she was afraid of Prince or that she thought he was at risk for elopement. In fact, she specifically stated “he wasn’t threatening himself or the staff,” and “he was not a threat to me or my staff and himself.” During the portion of the deposition in which counsel for Hospital questioned Nurse Emerick, which also was published at trial, the following exchange occurred:
Q: And you testified earlier that if you thought that he was a danger to you or the staff or anybody else, then you would have called security?
A: Yes.
Q: If nothing else, for your own protection?
A: Right.
Q: Did you think he was a danger to himself or others when you left the room — I’m sorry. You didn’t think that *614he was a danger to himself or others, and so you left the room?
A: Correct.
Nurse Emerick’s answers to these questions are not consistent with the statement she previously gave to the Hospital risk manager, as recorded in item 15: “Was a little afraid of him. Thought he was at risk for elopement.” In the December 1, 2008 order, the trial court called the inconsistency “most troubling.” The trial court went on to explain:
Never was the Plaintiff made aware that the note the Risk Manager ... [made] from her interview, indicated that Nurse Emerick: “Was a little afraid of him. Thought he was at risk for elopement.” Nevertheless, everything else addressed in that note was disclosed to the Plaintiff in the defendants’ Answers to Interrogatories....
After referring to several authorities on the importance of the disclosure of information relating to witness credibility, the trial court stated:
The instant case is not one where it is just “the litigant’s need for information from the most convenient source,” McGee v. Bruce Hosp., supra (emphasis supplied). As the Court of Appeals recognized, “Prince had no memory of the incident, and the only investigative body was the Hospital, a naturally biased entity.”[10] Therefore, the Hospital and its investigators — who “acquired” the information and have sought the protection of the statutory privilege — are the only source of information as to what occurred the night of the subject incident.
I share the trial court’s concern. The peer-review privilege under sections 40-71-10 and -20 protects only the documents in the peer-review file. The existence of a valid privilege does not permit counsel to remain silent when the privilege has protected from disclosure the only evidence available that a witness has testified untruthfully. The peer-review privilege was never intended to allow a party to conceal that a witness has testified untruthfully on the central issue in a case.
*615The issue before this court in this third appeal is a narrow one. The panel has determined that the legal consequences of the newly discovered evidence I have discussed above, and in particular the answer to the second question we instructed the parties to brief after oral arguments, are beyond the scope of this appeal. These consequences must be addressed, if at all, in a separate proceeding before the circuit court under Rule 60(b)(2), SCRCP. However, I am sufficiently troubled by what I have seen that I could not let these facts go unnoted, nor my concern over these events unspoken.

. "Elopement,” as the trial court noted in a footnote to its December 1, 2008 order, is defined as an "attempt to exit a facility unaccompanied.” Kelly J. Taylor, RN, JD, "Resident Elopement: Managing the Liability *612Risks of Wandering,” Carefully Speaking, Winter 2002, Volume 7, Issue 1.

. This court noted in its opinion on Hospital's First Appeal that the June 22, 2006 order “does not describe the evidence....”

. The interrogatory and answer read:
*6133. For each person known to the parties or counsel to be a witness concerning the case, set forth either a summary sufficient to inform the other party of the important facts known to or observed by such witnesses, or provide a copy of any written or recorded statements taken from such witnesses.
Answer: ...
Jennifer Emerick was the nurse providing care for Mr. Prince on the evening of the occurrence. She noted around 8:30 that he was shaking and weak, and she suspected that the patient may have DTs. At 9:30 Mr. Prince called and asked for his temperature to be taken; it was 100.9. She established that somewhere between 9:45 and 10:00 that Dr. McNeil saw the patient and advised Ms. Emerick that the patient looked fine. Around 10:30, she noticed that the patient was shaking visibly and exhibiting strange behavior. She had ordered medications for the patient that had not come up from the pharmacy. At 11:15 when the patients’ med arrived, Jennifer Emerick went into the room to administer them to the patient, and the patient was gone, the IV pump was running and she noticed the window was open; she glanced out the window, but did not see the patient. She was going to report to security when she was notified that there was a patient on the roof of the third floor.

. The trial court is quoting this court's opinion in Prince v. Beaufort Mem. Hosp., Op. No.2008-UP-139 at 6 (S.C. Ct.App. filed March 3, 2008).