Court Opinion

ID: 9765033
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:48:22.561352+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:03.833185
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM R. WEINBERG, Special
Justice, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur with that portion of the majority opinion which affirms the Court of Appeals’ order denying the appellants’ motions for writs of prohibition and mandamus relating to summary judgment on the basis that extraordinary relief under CR 76.36 is not appropriate because the appellants have not *543demonstrated that they will have no adequate remedy upon appeal.
I respectfully dissent from the remainder of the majority opinion and do so on three grounds:
1. The appellants have not sustained their burden to show that the Court of Appeals abused its discretion in denying their petition for writs of prohibition and mandamus in their entirety;
2. The appellants did not sustain their burden of showing that they had no adequate remedy through the normal appellate process and that they would suffer great and irreparable injury if the extraordinary relief which they are requesting is not granted; and
3. The issues raised in this original action under CR 76.36 are several and complex and would best be dealt with by this Court after more factual development has occurred at the trial level and through the normal appellate process.
The majority opinion prematurely decides the scope of KRS 311.377, Kentucky’s peer review confidentiality statute. The appellants are sufficiently protected from public disclosure of discovered material by the trial court’s order requiring confidentiality and by the sealing of all material discovered pursuant to its order.
KRS 311.377 specifically limits the waiver discussed therein to “good faith” actions. The thrust of Dr. Peasley’s entire action is that the hospitals did not act in good faith. KRS 311.377(2), which discusses peer review confidentiality, specifically refers to KRS 311.377(1) and therefore incorporates the good faith exception to the waiver discussed in the statute into the peer review confidentiality subsection as well. Under such circumstances, Dr. Peasley would seem entitled to conduct rudimentary discovery aimed at showing a basis for his bad faith allegations.
Even if a privilege exists, it has been held that the privilege would not be recognized if the injury that would occur by the disclosure of the communication is not greater than the benefit granted by disclosure in assisting the correct disposal of the litigation. Ott v. St. Luke Hospital of Campbell County, Inc., 522 F.Supp. 706 (E.Dist. of Ky.1981), quoting American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, Inc. v. Finch, 638 F.2d 1336, 1344 (5th Cir.1981). Here, the appellants’ request for extraordinary relief does not pass that portion of the test set forth in Ott.
The majority recognized a long line of cases requiring that persons seeking extraordinary relief through a writ of prohibition or writ of mandamus must demonstrate that they possess no adequate remedy through the normal appellate process and that great and irreparable injury will occur if the relief which they seek is not granted. The majority bases its opinion that the appellants have met this difficult threshold on language found in Bender v. Eaton, Ky., 343 S.W.2d 799 (1961), pertaining to what was then privileged information.1
In the context of this case, if no information exists within the peer review process supporting the appellees’ claim of bad faith, then the information produced would be irrelevant and therefore inadmissible and Dr. Peasley’s claim would die a natural death. If, on the other hand, information is elicited through the requested discovery supporting Dr. Peasley’s claim of bad faith, it would seem to be properly discoverable information under both KRS 311.377 and Ott. Since the trial court sealed all of the information sought and required its confidentiality, it is difficult to see how the appellants can or will suffer any irreparable injury through the disclosure. Certainly the appellants have preserved their right to object to the admissibility of any information discovered and to raise those issues upon subsequent appeal.
This case can best be decided later upon appeal, if necessary. In this original action under 76.36,1 would have affirmed the unanimous order of the Court of Appeals without comment and waited to later address any *544issues which might be raised through the normal appellate process.
LEIBSON, J., joins in this opinion.

. Interestingly enough, Bender v. Eaton was decided under old Kentucky Civil Rules which no longer exist. It prohibited the required production of the medical reports of physicians, a practice which is specifically allowed under current civil rules, demonstrating the significant liberalization of the discovery process which has occurred since 1961, the year that Bender was decided.