Court Opinion

ID: 9527714
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:33:17.950111+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:05.187359
License: Public Domain

Pigott, J. (dissenting).
Our holding today grants defense counsel the unprecedented ability to compel a plaintiff, who has placed his or her mental or physical condition in controversy, to execute authorizations allowing defense counsel to speak to his or her treating physicians outside the formal discovery process and without the plaintiff being present. As one commentator has noted, however, it is “beyond cavil” that “neither the machinery in CPLR Article 31 nor the applicable Uniform Rules [for New York State Trial Courts] provide for disclosure of this nature” (Connors, New York Practice, Appellate Division Is *417Confronted With HIPAA, NYLJ, Jan. 17, 2007, at 3, col 1). Because this issue is one that, in my view, requires legislative action and cannot be adequately addressed by judicial decree, I respectfully dissent.
Article 31 of the CPLR and section 202.17 of the Uniform Rules (22 NYCRR) furnish a comprehensive statutory and regulatory framework governing the disclosure, in all actions, of the medical information of a party who has placed his or her mental or physical condition in controversy (see CPLR 3121 [entitled “Physical or mental examination”]; 22 NYCRR 202.17 [entitled “Exchange of medical reports in personal injury and wrongful death actions”]). This scheme ensures that all parties, including the litigant whose mental or physical condition is in controversy, are fully cognizant of the medical information in the possession of the other parties. For instance, under the Uniform Rules, a party conducting a physical examination of the litigant must provide a copy of the report setting forth the examining physician’s findings and conclusions to every other party to the action (22 NYCRR 202.17 [c]). Moreover, a party obtaining a copy of medical records through the use of written authorizations supplied by the litigant must “deliver a duplicate of such copy” to the party who executed the authorization (CPLR 3121 [a]). In addition, a party may be granted an order to conduct the deposition of an adverse party’s treating physician “upon notice stating the circumstances or reasons such disclosure is sought or required” (see CPLR 3101 [a] [4]).
Our holding today substantially modifies this carefully crafted scheme by allowing one party to unilaterally obtain, in a manner not authorized by article 31, information about an adverse party’s medical condition. CPLR 3102, entitled “Method of obtaining disclosure,” clearly limits the scope of disclosure devices that may be used by a litigant to “depositions upon oral questions or without the state upon written questions, interrogatories, demands for addresses, discovery and inspection of documents or property, physical and mental examinations of persons, and requests for admission” (CPLR 3102 [a]). Upon a litigant’s failure “to respond to or comply with any request, notice, interrogatory, demand, question or order under [Article 31] . . . the party seeking disclosure may move to compel compliance or a response” (CPLR 3124 [emphasis supplied]). Although a litigant whose mental or physical condition is in controversy may be compelled to *418provide authorizations entitling the opposing party to obtain medical records (CPLR 3124; 22 NYCRR 202.17 [j]), there is simply no statutory authority “under [Article 31]” for off-the-record interviews of treating physicians. Applying the basic principle of statutory construction “expressio unius est exclusio alterius” (“the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another”) (Black’s Law Dictionary 581 [6th ed 1990]), it is evident that the Legislature has limited the forms of authorizations to which defendants are entitled, namely, authorizations permitting defendants to obtain only copies of plaintiffs’ medical records.
Pointing to our holdings in Niesig v Team I (76 NY2d 363 [1990]) and Muriel Siebert & Co., Inc. v Intuit Inc. (8 NY3d 506 [2007]), the majority rejects plaintiffs’ argument that defendants are not entitled to the authorizations they seek because “there are no statutes and no rules expressly authorizing—or forbidding—ex parte discussions with any nonparty” (majority op at 409). The majority’s reliance on those cases is, in my view, misplaced. Our holdings in Niesig and Siebert focused primarily on the definition of a party for purposes of discovery. Niesig involved the narrow issue of whether counsel could, without running afoul of Code of Professional Responsibility DR 7-104 (a) (1) (22 NYCRR 1200.35 [a] [1]), conduct informal, ex parte interviews of nonmanagerial, noncontrolling employees of an opposing party who witnessed an accident (see Niesig, 76 NY2d at 369, 374-375); Siebert addressed the narrow issue of whether counsel could conduct an informal, ex parte interview of a former employee of an opposing party (see Siebert, 8 NY3d at 511-512). Neither Niesig nor Siebert involved a party’s invocation of article 31 to obtain the informal interviews, nor did the parties in those cases need the assistance of the opposing party. In neither instance was the protection of medical records and information implicated.
In contrast, defendants here seek court intervention compelling plaintiffs to execute HIPAA-compliant authorizations which, in my view, takes the matter out of the realm of informal discovery and into the realm of formal disclosure, which is supervised by the trial courts (see CPLR 3104). Because trial courts are constrained to limit their supervision of disclosure to those devices delineated in article 31, it likewise follows that article 31 must provide some basis for the relief. Given the fact that the Legislature has narrowly limited a litigant’s obligation to execute authorizations to those situations where an adverse *419party is seeking copies of medical records, and nothing more, it is my view that defendants here are not entitled to authorizations to conduct informal, ex parte interviews with the treating physicians during pretrial discovery.
In addition to permitting such interviews during pretrial discovery, our holding impermissibly allows those interviews to take place after the note of issue and certificate of readiness have been filed. Of course, the filing of those documents signifies the end of discovery and, barring a timely motion to vacate, constitutes certification by the parties that “[discovery proceedings now known to be necessary [have been] completed” (22 NYCRR 202.21 [b]). Under our holding today, however, defense counsel would be permitted to obtain court-ordered, HIPAA-compliant authorizations at any time and use them at any time both prior to and after the filing of a note of issue and certificate of readiness. Although defendants refer to such informal interviews as “trial preparation,” they are really nothing more than post-note of issue discovery, which is expressly prohibited by the Uniform Rules unless the party seeking the discovery can demonstrate “unusual or unanticipated circumstances develop[ed] subsequent to the filing of [the] note of issue and certificate of readiness which require additional pretrial proceedings to prevent substantial prejudice” (22 NYCRR 202.21 [d]). By the time a case has been certified as ready for trial, the defendant should have a firm grasp of the plaintiffs medical condition after deposing the plaintiff, perusing the plaintiffs medical information and defense counsel’s own medical examination of plaintiff and conferring with its own expert. Therefore, such interviews as contemplated here are neither necessary nor warranted, and our holding permits circumvention of the “unusual and unanticipated circumstances” requirement of 22 NYCRR 202.21 (d).
There is no doubt that the enactment of HIPAA uncovered a practice whereby physicians who may have at one time spoken informally with defense counsel are no longer able to do so without a signed HIPAA authorization. Nonetheless, that does not mean that this Court should sanction that conduct and afford defense counsel a disclosure device that is not authorized by either article 31 or the Uniform Rules.
Chief Judge Kaye and Judges Ciparick, Graffeo, Smith and Jones concur with Judge Read; Judge Pigott dissents in a separate opinion.
*420In Arons v Jutkowitz: Order reversed, with costs, motion to compel plaintiff to provide the subject authorizations granted in accordance with the opinion herein and certified question answered in the negative.
In Webb v New York Methodist Hosp. and Kish v Graham: Order reversed, with costs, defendants’ motion to compel plaintiff to provide the subject authorizations granted in accordance with the opinion herein and certified question answered in the negative.