By Alex Stein
In a recent case, Frankfort Reg. Med. Ctr. v. Shepherd, 2016 WL 3376030 (Ky. 2016), the Kentucky Supreme Court held that the attorney-client privilege and its work-product extension do not protect records compiled by a hospital’s risk-management specialist. Records that the Court held to be discoverable contained information pertaining to a baby delivery that went badly. The risk-management specialist gathered that information with an eye on a possible medical malpractice suit, but her primary goal was risk management (which presumably precluded the applicability of the “subsequent remedial measures” privilege).
The Court’s decision relied on the familiar “dominant purpose” test, under which the attorney-client privilege only covers documents compiled primarily in preparation to litigation. Understandable as it may be from a purely doctrinal viewpoint, this decision makes no economic sense. All it does is create a trap for the unwary and an opportunity for hospitals familiar with the law to protect their risk-management information against disclosure. To obtain the needed protection, all that a hospital needs to do is ask its in-house counsel or outside attorney to control the risk-management procedures and decisions, so that risk management becomes part of the attorney’s work as a protector of the hospital’s legal interests. Doing so isn’t difficult but costlier than simply relying on a risk-management consultant.