United States District Court, D. Kansas
D.M., a minor, by and through his next friend and natural guardian, KELLI MORGAN, Plaintiff,
v.
WESLEY MEDICAL CENTER LLC d/b/a WESLEY MEDICAL CENTER-WOODLAWN, et al., Defendants.
MEMORANDUM & ORDER ON MOTION TO QUASH OR MODIFY
SUBPONEA TO NON-PARTY
HON.
KENNETH G. GALE, U.S. MAGISTRATE JUDGE
Now
before the Court is the “Motion to Quash or Modify
Plaintiff's Subpoena to Non-Party CarePoint, LLC”
filed by Defendant Wesley Medical Center (hereinafter
“Wesley” or “Defendant”). (Doc. 264.)
Having reviewed the submissions of the parties, the Court
DENIES Defendant's motion.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff,
through his natural guardian and next friend, filed his
federal court Complaint on April 9, 2018, alleging claims
under Kansas medical malpractice laws and under the Federal
Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. The claims
result from the medical care he received on March 5 and 6,
2017. Plaintiff alleges that on March 6, 2017, he
“suffered a catastrophic and medically-preventable
stroke that left him with right-side paralysis, neurological
damage and other debilitating physical injuries that
permanently changed his and his parents' lives.”
(Doc. 1, at 5.)
Plaintiff
filed a Notice of Subpoena (Doc. 250) on January 7, 2019,
informing the parties that a subpoena for documents would be
served on non-party CarePoint. CarePoint employed Defendants
Bridget Grover and Dr. Gregory Faimon at the time Plaintiff
was treated in Wesley's Woodlawn emergency room. Wesley
contends it has standing to bring the present motion (Doc.
264, at 2) and Plaintiff does not contest this (see
generally Doc. 277). Wesley argues that the subpoena
seeks several categories of documents that are protected by
the risk management and peer review privileges, seeks
irrelevant yet confidential proprietary information, and are
duplicative of document requests made to Wesley. (See
generally Docs. 264, 283.) Plaintiff contends that the
privileges are inapplicable, the information requested is
both relevant and not confidential, and the categories of
documents requested are not duplicative. (See
generally Doc. 277.)
ANALYSIS
I.
Legal Standards for Discovery.
Fed.R.Civ.P.
26(b) states that
[p]arties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged
matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense
and proportional to the needs of the case, considering the
importance of the issues at state in the action, the amount
in controversy, the parties' relative access to relevant
information, the parties' resources, the importance of
the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden
or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely
benefit. Information within this scope of discovery need not
be admissible in evidence to be discoverable.
As such, the requested information must be nonprivileged,
relevant, and proportional to the needs of the case to be
discoverable. Holick v. Burkhart, No.
16-1188-JTM-KGG, 2018 WL 372440, at *2 (D. Kan. Jan. 11,
2018).
II.
Application of Peer Review and Risk Management
Privileges.
As an
initial matter, the Court notes that Defendant has previously
acknowledged “that no federal peer review privilege has
been recognized by the Supreme Court or the Tenth
Circuit.” (Doc. 272, at 3 (citing Doc. 267, at 7;
Sellers, 2012 WL 5362977, at *2, *3; Sonnino v.
University of Kansas Hosp. Auth., 220 F.R.D. 633, 644
(D. Kan. 2004).) In its motion to reconsider the Court's
prior Order regarding the application of the privileges,
Wesley argued that the Court should “find that a
federal peer review privilege is applicable under the facts
of this case.” (Id.) Wesley continued that
recognition of the privilege by this Court would “serve
public and private interests, ” such as the provision
of an acceptable quality health care, which Wesley states is
“essential to the well-being of [the] citizens [of
Kansas] …” (Doc. 272, at 5.)
The
Court has extensively addressed and analyzed the privileges
in its prior Order on Defendants' Motion to Reconsider.
(Doc. 333, at 6-8.) That analysis is incorporated herein by
reference. The Court will not further analyze the application
of the privileges. That stated, this Court held that
the fact remains that the peer review and risk management
privileges have not been recognized in this District or the
Tenth Circuit. In the absence of Congressional directive,
this Court should be cautious imposing restrictions on the
discovery of evidence relevant to federal claims. Defendants
have not persuaded the Court to ...