Background
Diane Wickersheim sued multiple healthcare defendants on behalf of David Kozlowski, a disabled person, for medical negligence stemming from treatment received in October-November 2020. The allegations centered on the failure to timely diagnose and treat a subdural hemorrhage sustained in a car crash and failure to treat an intracerebral hemorrhage that developed following emergency surgery. Sherman Hospital was among the defendants.
During discovery, the plaintiff requested all credentialing records for six medical providers treated at Sherman Hospital. Although Sherman Hospital initially objected based on relevancy, the trial court ordered production of non-privileged materials from 2018 through December 2023. Sherman Hospital produced 2,051 pages with substantial redactions, claiming the redacted material was protected under the Medical Studies Act (the “peer-review privilege”). The plaintiff challenged these redactions.
The Court’s Holding
The appellate court affirmed the trial court’s finding that Sherman Hospital failed to meet its burden of establishing that 14 disputed pages were privileged under the Medical Studies Act. The trial court had conducted an in camera review of over 2,000 pages without receiving supporting affidavits from Sherman Hospital. Based solely on the face of the documents, the trial court found that Sherman Hospital had not clearly demonstrated these 14 pages were “initiated, created, prepared, or generated” by a peer-review committee. Some documents lacked clear attribution, committee designation, or temporal connection to the credentialing process.
However, the court vacated the trial court’s finding of civil contempt and the imposed monetary sanction ($1,000 per day per page, doubling every 14 days to a maximum of $128,000 per page). Although Sherman Hospital failed to establish privilege, the appellate court held that contempt sanctions were inappropriate under these circumstances.
Key Takeaways
- The party claiming Medical Studies Act privilege bears the burden of establishing that information was generated by a peer-review committee, not merely reviewed by one.
- A hospital cannot satisfy its privilege burden by tendering thousands of pages to a trial court without supporting affidavits or explanation, leaving the court to determine privilege solely from document face.
- Civil contempt sanctions are not appropriate when a party disputes the applicability of privilege law, even if the privilege claim ultimately fails.
- Appellate courts called to clarify procedures for establishing peer-review privilege to avoid inconsistent trial court applications.
Why It Matters
This decision addresses a critical procedural tension in healthcare discovery disputes: the Medical Studies Act’s protective purpose versus the practical burden on trial courts when hospitals invoke privilege over thousands of pages without documentary support. The appellate court affirmed strong protection for the peer-review privilege itself but rejected the use of civil contempt as a tool to enforce privilege rulings in close cases, signaling that sanctions should be reserved for clear-cut violations, not good-faith privilege disputes.
The opinion may reshape how hospitals approach Medical Studies Act claims. By requiring meaningful substantiation beyond document production alone—affidavits, privilege log explanations, or other evidence clarifying committee involvement—the court raised the evidentiary bar while simultaneously protecting hospitals from contempt exposure when facing genuine ambiguity about whether materials are truly committee-generated.